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RAYS OF LIGHT 



IN THE 



VALLEY OF SORROW. 



BY -^* 

REV. HENRY WHEELER, 

AUTHOR OF " METHODISM AND THE TEMPERANCE REFORMATION.' 



VITfl 1 COKCLUDINO CHAPTER ON 

THE RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEAVEN, 

BY THE LATE 

REV. REUBEN NELSON, D.D. 



Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith y5ur God. — IsAlAH. 



AUG 29 1887' 



PHILADELPHIA: 

P. W. ZIEGLER & CO. 

1887. 



€ 



-3? 







CcqpyrigH 1883, by P. W. Ziegleb & CSa 



TO THE 

memory of my brother, 
Joseph W. Wheeler, 

WHO 

FELL IN THE STRENGTH OF HIS MANHOOD, AND 
WAS EARLY CROWNED WITH 

IMMORTALITY, 

THESE PAGES ARE AFFECTIONATELY 

DEDICATED, 



PEEFACE. 



nnHESE pages are submitted to the Chris- 
tian public with a desire to throw a 
ray of light across some pathway darkened 
by affliction. We have often wished for a 
small volume which we could put into the 
home made desolate by death, and thereby 
convey instruction which could not well be 
spoken. "To comfort them for the dead," 
and "give them the cup of consolation to 
drink for their father or their mother." If 
this should be received with favor for this 
purpose, it will be a source of gratitude and 
praise to God. 

It is not designed as an argumentative dis- 
cussion of the topics presented, but simply, to 

(5) 



6 PREFACE. 

show some of the elements of comfort and 
hope that abound in the established doctrines 
of the Holy Scriptures. 

It was our intention to insert a chapter of 
our own on " The Recognition of Friends in 
Heaven/' but by the kindness of Mrs. R. 
Nelson, a manuscript upon that subject, 
written by her late lamented husband, Rev. 
R. Nelson, D. D., late Agent of the Methodist 
Episcopal Book Concern of New York, was 
placed in our hands with the privilege of 
using it. This we have given as the closing 
chapter. 

We remember when Dr. Nelson preached 
on this subject at our camp-meetings, and 
listening thousands stood enchanted by the 
spell of his eloquence ; when vast audiences 
wept as he presented, with his whole soul on 
fire, the comforting aspects of his favorite 
theme. The warm heart, the deep emotion, 
the noble soul, projected themselves into the 
spoken word, and enkindled feeling and in- 



PREFACE, 7 

spiration in all hearts. That voice is silent 
now, but we are glad of the opportunity of 
putting these thoughts of our noble friend 
into permanent form, and within reach of 
those who held him in high esteem and aflfec- 
tion. 

The whole is sent forth with the earnest 
hope that it may glorify God and comfort the 
hearts of men. 

H. W. 

Philadelphia, May, 1883. 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER I. 

SUNSHINE AFTER THE KAIN . . . .11 

CHAPTER II. 

THE PITYING FATHER 29 

CHAPTER III. 

ANGEL MINISTRIES 45 

CHAPTER IV. 

LIGHT IN THE VALLEY . . . .65 

CHAPTER V. 

THE HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION . . 93 

CHAPTER VL 

IMMORTALITY THE HOPE OF THE FATHERS • 1 23 

CHAPTER VII. 

IMMORTALITY MADE MANIFEST BY CHRIST . 145 

(.9) 



10 CONTENTS, 

CHAPTER VIII. 

FAITH IN IMMORTALITY A SOURCE OF COMFORT 167 

CHAPTER IX. 

HEAVEN THE HOME OF THE BLESSED DEAD, 189 

CHAPTER X. 

THE RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEAVEN • 209 




AYS OF lilGHT 

IN 

THE VALLEY OF SORROW. 



CHAPTER I. 

SUNSHINE AFTER THE RAIN. 

The best fruit loads the broken bough : 
And in the wounds our sufferings plow, 
Immortal love sows sovereign seed, — Massey, 

For our light affliction, which is for the moment, worketh for 
us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory ; while 
we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which 
are not seen ; for the things which are seen are temporal ; but the 
things which are not seen are eternal. — Paul, 

LIFE is a checkered scene. It is well rep- 
resented by transitions in nature. The 
bright sunshine is emblematic of days of pros- 
perity, when gladness fills the soul, and the 
spirit is buoyant and tuneful as the birds 
singing their morning song. The dark clouds 
and heavy leaden skies, the storms and fierce 

(It) 



12 SUNSHINE AFTER THE RAIN, 

tornadoes are emblems of physical pain, of 
mental depression or agitation, of dark days 
when friends die and prosperity flies, when 
hope droops and faith is stretched to its ut- 
most tension. But the storm does not last 
forever; neither will our affliction. The 
heavy clouds will be swept away, and the 
clear sunshine will brighten and bless the 
landscape. While the cloud overshadows us 
we are apt to partake of its gloom ; but we 
must think of the undimmed sun that shines . 
above the cloud, and wait patiently for the 
light that always succeeds the darkness. 

The changes in the aspect of nature are no 
greater than are those in our life. There are 
all the gradations from the peaceful calm to 
the raging storm, from the bright sunshine to 
the darkness of midnight. But as in nature 
the storm has its ministry of good, contribut- 
ing to the purifying of the atmosphere, and 
all changes work for the welfare of man and 
the development of natural products, so, by 
the grace of God, " our light affliction, which 
is but for a moment, worketh for us a far 
more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." 

The palace and the cottage are alike visited 



SUNSHINE AFTER THE RAIN. 13 

by afflictive dispensations. No class in so- 
ciety, no position in life, is exempt. Gold 
cannot bribe, nor skill ward off, nor beauty 
charm physical decay or disease. No human 
body is absolutely free from pain, no heart is 
left untouched, no circle left unbroken. Af- 
flictions are more common than we think. 
We deem our own the hardest lot because 
felt and seen, while that of others is concealed 
from view. "Each heart knoweth its own 
bitterness." It is only by experience of suf- 
fering that we can judge of its poignancy, and 
only by observation beyond our own circle 
can we judge of its prevalence. 

" This life of oui-s is a wild ^oHan harp of many a joyous strain, 
Yet under them all there runs a loud, perpetual wail as of souls 
in pain.'* 

To the good suffering brings its own anti- 
dote ; with the pain comes the promise, " My 
grace shall be sufficient for thee.'' Paul 
spoke of the sufferings he endured in the 
cause of Christ, but they were to him badges 
of distinction — he gloried in them. "Yet of 
myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmi- 
ties." He magnified the grace of God in 



14 SUNSHINE AFTER THE RAIN. 

Christ which sustained him. His weakness 
and pain were only opportunities for the. dis- 
play of the goodness and power of his Lord. 
So Christ was honored in his servant's afflic- 
tion. 

Our estimate of affliction will be modified 
by the standpoint from which we see it. If 
we ascend the mount on w-hich Christ suffered 
and died, and look on it in the light which 
radiates from the cross, it will appear as part 
of God's great disciplinary plan by which his 
servants are made perfect. When the world 
looks dull and heaven looks bright, when we 
close our eyes to things temporal and open 
them to things eternal, physical or mental 
pain works our highest moral good. It is 
then something more than suffering : it is the 
correction of evil, the polishing of the mirror 
that it may reflect more perfectly the image 
of the Master. It is the refining of the gold 
by purging away the dross. 

Jacob mourned greatly when bereaved of 
his sons, not knowing that God was thereby 
working the salvation of his family. In his 
short human sight he mournfully exclaimed, 
"AH these things are against me." How in- 



SUNSHINE AFTER THE RAIN. 15 

tensely human is this expression ! The pa- 
triarch's sorrow came near his heart. Only 
the dark side of the cloud was visible, and his 
ftiith could not pierce it. He could not see 
the sunshine beyond. The final cause, the 
remote consequences he did not contemplate, 
and all these things seemed against him. But 
from the standpoint of grace these things 
were all for him. Joseph's way to greatness 
and power lay through the slavery into which 
his brothers sold him, and Israel's path to 
temporal salvation and national glory lay 
through the darkness of Egypt ; but the pa- 
triarch's faith was not equal to its discovery, 
and God had not yet made known his pur- 
poses. 

The traveller standing on the banks of a 
river is impressed with its width and threat- 
ening aspect, as the waves foam and dash at 
his feet ; but when he ascends to some great 
altitude and looks down, it is like a thread 
of silver adorning the landscape. How much 
higher was Paul than Jacob ! His faith took 
hold of eternal things. " But none of these 
things move me, neither count I my life dear 
unto myself so that I might finish my course 



16 SUNSHINE AFTER THE BAIN. 

with joy, and the ministry which I have re- 
ceived of the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel 
of the grace of God." 

Afflictions come to us by permission of the 
divine Father. We may sometimes be harassed 
by the thought that Satan has some power 
over us for evil. He is the " prince of dark- 
ness/' who has the " power of death/' " the 
prince of the power of the air/' and power 
over the physical as well as over the moral 
nature of man is attributed to him. We may 
be able to correct the representations of the 
early church on this point by the assured re- 
sults of modern science; yet we cannot deny 
to Satan an influence or agency in the sphere 
of nature without denying the. statements of 
revealed truth. Satanic influence and power 
are manifest in the sufferings of Job. And 
these ^^principalities and powers/' these 
^^ rulers of the darkness of this world/' 
these " wicked spirits in high places/' against 
which we " wrestle/' may touch with fiery 
finger either body or soul, and inflict physical 
or mental suffering. But the eye of God is 
ever upon those who love him. Not a hair 
of their heads can fall to the ground without 



SUNSHINE AFTER THE RAIN, 17 

his notice. Whatever may be the direct 
cause of our suffering, the divine One has 
knowledge of it^ and it forms a part of his 
plan. Our duty is therefore humble submis- 
sion ; we must not rebel under the chastise- 
ment. The strokes may be severe and in 
quick succession ; the suffering may be great 
and the providence inscrutable, but behind 
the agency, whatever it may be, there is a 
heart that throbs with tenderness, and a di- 
recting mind infinite in wisdom. How beau- 
tiful and tender are the words of inspiration ! 
" My son, despise not thou the chastening of 
the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of 
him : For whom the Lord loveth he chasten- 
eth, and scourgeth every son whom he re- 
ceiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth 
with you as with sons ; for what son is he 
whom the father chasteneth not?" It was 
in prosperity that David said, " I shall never 
be moved." The success of all our plans may 
lead us to presumptuous sins. Unbroken 
prosperity may lead to forgetfulness of God 
and the undervaluing of his mercies, but the 
withdrawal of the sunshine leads us to look 
for the sun. 



18 SUNSHINE AFTER THE RAIN. 

Paul calls our affliction " light/' We would 
be afraid to apply this word to earthly sorrow 
did we not find it in the book of God. Our 
affliction does not always seem light. When 
the cherished hopes of a lifetime are blasted 
in a moment, when the light of the house 
goes out, when the heart is crushed, when all 
the argosies of our life and hope are stranded 
wrecks upon a bleak and stormy shore, our 
afflictions are heavy, judged from any stand- 
point that is not furnished by the Christian's 
faith. We can bear them patiently when we 
hear the promise, " I will never leave thee, I 
will never forsake thee." But how terribly 
sad for those to whom all that remain of life 
are the "worm, the canker, and the grief," and 
for whom no beacon light shines from beyond 
the sea. 

Paul did not intend to trifle with our pain 
or insult our grief. He looked upon affliction 
from a pure and exalted position. He viewed 
it in contrast with " the glory which shall be 
revealed." He was himself a sufferer, and in 
itself his suffering v/as great and heavy. He 
" bore in his body the marks of the Lord 
Jesus," " died daily," was " in jeopardy every 



SUNSHINE AFTER THE RAIN. 19 

hour/' "in stripes above measure, in prisons 
more frequent, in deaths oft. In weariness 
and painfuhiess, in watchings often, in hunger 
and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and naked- 
ness." Such were some of Paul's sufferings ; 
and only when viewed from the mount of 
God's redeeming love are such afflictions 
light. From this they come in contrast with 
the sufferings of Christ, and are not worthy 
the comparison. He was " a man of sorrows 
and acquainted with grief" His soul was 
"exceeding sorrowful even unto death." And 
all his sufferings were endured to atone for 
our sins. 

If we look at our suffering as punitive in 
character, how small it is in comparison with 
the demands of divine justice. Thank God, 
" the chastisement of our peace " was upon 
Christ, " and by his stripes we are healed." 
How light our sorrow in comparison with the 
" exceeding great and eternal weight of glory." 
It is "but for a moment." It does not seem 
so short to us, so difficult is it to lose sight of 
the present in contemplation of the future. 
But long weary nights of watching, long 
months of anxious suspense, long years of 



20 SUNSHINE AFTER THE RAIN. 

widowhood, a lifetime of poverty and sorrow 
or sickness and pain are but as a moment in 
comparison with eternity. 

Be of good comfort, ye afflicted ones. God 
holds in reserve a blessing for the eyes that 
weep. The dark night must end at sunrise. 
The icy barriers that winter has thrown 
around us will melt in the warm summer's 
sun. 

"Adversity's cold frost will soon be o'er ; 
It heralds brighter days ; the joyous spring 
Is cradled on the winter's icy breast 
And yet comes flushed in beauty." 

If our affliction be sanctified to the good of 
our souls, its influence will reach to both 
worlds. If it work for our spiritual good 
now, it will enhance our glory hereafter. 
Whether good or ill shall result will depend 
on the use we make of it. " Now no chasten- 
ing for the present seemeth to be joyous, but 
grievous ; nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth 
the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them 
which are exercised thereby." We must look 
beyond all temporal good to things spiritual 
and eternal. .The soul that pants for God 
will find itself lifted nearer to him by the 



SUNSHINE AFTER THE BAIN 21 

crosses that lie in the pathway of life. The 
unregenerate heart that rebels will sink lower 
in the moral scale. 

The believer in Christ will see in affliction 
a reminder of his mortality, the first crum- 
bling of the house of clay, and will long for 
his house which is from heaven, that " mor- 
tality might be swallowed up of life/' " For 
we know that if our house of this tabernacle 
were dissolved, we have a house, a building of 
God not made with hands, eternal in the 
heavens." " Why should I murmur ? " said 
Henry Martyn, in his last sickness. " Weak- 
ness, peril and pain are but the ministering 
angels whose office it is to conduct me to 
glory. The holiest weep, but their tears, as 
raindrops in the spring-time, are shot through 
with sunbeams; they sorrow not as those 
without hope." 

The hour of sickness is often an hour of 
deep communion with God and of special 
manifestations of divine favor. The sick- 
room is not always filled with gloom, but 
often with the light and glory of God. Inci- 
dents illustrative of this are frequently seen. 
We saw recently an aged disciple whose 



22 SUNSHINE AFTER THE BAIN. 

latter years were filled with intense suffering, 
waiting the summons of her Lord. She had 
not on account of disease rested upon her bed 
for many months. As a means of grace she 
wished to partake with her friends of the 
sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and in the 
emblems of his broken body and shed blood 
to find some fresh memorials of his grace. 
Suffering was depicted upon every lineament 
of her face, and at the same time perfect 
resignation to the will of God. As the ser- 
vice proceeded her soul was filled unutterably 
full of glory, and she shouted aloud the 
praises of her Lord and Saviour, and rejoiced 
in the unclouded light of God's approval. It 
was indeed sunshine after the rain. That 
humble room, filled as it was with evidences 
of human suffering, was also the dwelling- 
place of God, and angel visitants ministered to 
the soul soon to be released from the prison- 
house of clay. 

" The chamber where the good man meets his fate 
Is privileged beyond this common walk 
Of virtuous life, quite on the verge of heaven.'* 

In affliction the heart is made tender and 
yields more readily to the divine will. When 



SUNSHINE AFTER THE RAIN 23 

earthly props are cut from beneath us, the 
soul sends out her tendrils to grasp more 
firmly the strong arm of God. Many of God's 
children are, like the Captain of their salva- 
tion, made perfect through suffering, and the 
soul, chastened and subdued, rests in the bosom 
of God and longs to awake in his likeness. 
" Tribulation worketh patience ; and patience 
experience; and experience hope; and hope 
maketh not ashamed ; because the love of 
God is shed abroad in our heart by the Holy 
Ghost which is given unto us." 

When visiting an invalid lady who had for 
years been confined to her house, we quoted 
the scriptures which teach that affliction is 
beneficial, and asked, " How does your ex- 
perience corroborate the divine word ? " She 
replied, " When young I was full of life and 
gayety. I asked God to lead me nearer to him- 
self and make me more like Jesus. He has 
done it, and by pain and sickness I have been 
established in Christ; others are better for 
my sufferings and I am thankful. I cannot 
work for God, but ' they also serve who only 
stand and wait.' I prefer my life of pain to 
that I would have lived in health." Such 



24 SUNSHINE AFTER THE RAIN 

testimony can only be given by a heart under 
the influence of grace. " Even so, Father, for 
so it seemeth good in thy sight." The 
promises of God are all given for practical 
tests. They are never found wanting in real 
life. ^^ Heaven and earth shall pass away, 
but my words shall not pass away." 

There is a close connection between suffer- 
ing and grace. In proportion to the melting 
is the refining and purifying. It is not uncom- 
mon to have a baptism of the Holy Spirit in 
the day of trial. It should not be forgotten 
that the distinctive name of the Holy Ghost 
is '^The Comforter," and one of his holy 
offices is to comfort the afflicted. His coming 
was promised by Christ when the disciples 
were anticipating the sorrows of bereave- 
ment. "It is expedient for you that I go 
away; for if I go not away, the Comforter 
will not come to you ; but if I depart, I will 
send him unto you." The tenderness of the 
Holy Spirit is often seen in the hour of pain 
and bereavement. He takes of the things of 
Jesus and shows them unto us, thereby lifting 
the drooping spirit and animating our faith 
and hope by divine consolations and visions of 



SUNSHINE AFTER THE RAIN. 25 

the glory beyond. Then we glorify God in 
suffering as much as in health and prosperity^ 
and when the trial is past, the purity, wrought 
by the Holy Spirit through the agency of 
suffering, remains, and the soul shines re- 
splendent in the glory of Christ. The land- 
scape is never more beautiful than after the 
storm, when nature's tears are sparkling upon 
every tree and flower, when the sunshine 
bursts through the angry elements, and God's 
bow of peace is painted upon the bosom of 
the retiring storm-cloud. So grace and purity 
are never more beautiful than when they 
come as the result of trial, and are seen shin- 
ing through pain and suffering. 

If the glory of the present life is enhanced 
through suffering,, what of the life to come ? 
The exceeding great and eternal weight of 
glory belongs to the future life, and much of its 
brilliancy will be the result of sanctified suf- 
fering here. Our afflictions are the discipline, 
the pruning and cutting by Avhich we are 
made to bear much fruit to the glory of God. 
They are the polishing and burnishing by 
which we are made to reflect the divine image. 
The "glory" comes not by merit, but of grace 



26 SUNSHINE AFTER THE RAIN. 

through discipline, and the pain of discipline 
is not worthy of comparison with the ^^ weight 
of glory." " For I reckon that the sufferings 
of this present life are not worthy to be com- 
pared with the glory that shall be revealed in 
us." Such was Paul's reckoning, and he had 
counted the cost. If we could see him now, 
with the martyr's crown upon his brow, fore- 
most of the sons of God, we would under- 
stand, better than we can in this life, the re- 
lation between suffering and reward. And 
Paul would say, " I am not disappointed in 
my estimate of the glory that awaits the 
righteous." 

Michael Angelo, while working on the 
block of marble from which was to come the 
beautiful statue as the result of his genius, 
said, " As the marble wastes, the statue grows." 
So with the soul in all the elements of moral 
purity and beauty. The blows, the chiselling, 
the wasting under the hand of God will all 
contribute to our preparation for glory. 

We lose much by unbelief Some are tired 
waiting, it seems so long and the discipline is 
so tedious. But God understands his own 
plans and will bring his work to perfection. 



SUNSHINE AFTER THE RAIN. 27 

'' It is as if some artist were blamed for the 
length of time bestowed on some piece of work, 
some painting or sculpture. There are stories 
of the impatience with which the veil or the 
scaffolding has been regarded^ concealing the 
operations; but at last came the day when 
the veil or scaffolding was removed, and there 
rose the burst of exulting joy, for the work 
stood fully revealed and worthy of the long 
period of waiting. And what if some hour 
should strike, when, amidst the acclamations 
of the universe, the glory shall be revealed as 
the compensation for the suffering ; when the 
shaping, the polishing, the enamelling, and 
the inlaying shall all be done; when God 
shall say. Come, behold my work ; now 
at length it sees the light." Our impa- 
tience and weariness in waiting would then 
appear as the result of unbelief, and God 
would be justified in his work. ^^He hath 
done all things well," will burst from the lips 
of the saved, and the glory revealed will re- 
dound, not to the marble but to the sculptor, 
not to the soul but to God. 



V) 



CHAPTER II. 

THE pityi^:g father. 

And tears once filled his eye beside a mortal's grave, 
Who left his throne on high the lost to seek and save, 
And fresh, from age to age, their memory shall be kept, 
While man shall bless the page which tells that Jesus wept. 

Barton, 

Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth 
them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame ; he remem- 
bereth that we are dust. — David, 

T 1 1HERE is much comfort in the thought that 
-L God is always close by our side — that 
we are never alone; and to the soul in harmony 
with God there comes the greatest happiness 
from conscious communion with him. 

" Where'er I dwell, I dwell with thee, 
In heaven, in earth, or on the sea." 

That system of philosophy which repre- 
sents God as so far from us as to be re- 
gardless of our wants cannot commend itself to 
the human mind. It is cold^ distant and deso- 

(29) 



30 THE PITYING FATHER. 

late; unadapted to our condition, and mocks the 
yearnings of our nature. That view of 
Divine Providence which regards it as only 
general, without descending to the details of 
each individual life, does not meet the expecta- 
tions of creatures whose nature calls for sym- 
pathy and whose dependence pleads for sup- 
port. A God whose government is magnifi- 
cent, whose providence extends to every world 
that floats in space, if he does not come to me 
in my poverty and pain, is not the God 
who touches my heart or awakens the sym- 
pathies of my nature; neither does he touch 
the heart of the afflicted and the unfortunate. 
Evidences of God's sovereignty, magnificence 
and majesty are abundant, but the great cry 
of humanity is for sympathy and love : noth- 
ing else will satisfy the cravings of the souL 

" We pine for kindred natures to mingle with our own." 

It is naught but infidelity, no matter under 
what guise it comes, that would withdraw 
God to a sphere beyond the sympathies of 
earth and sink us into unnoticeable minute- 
ness, and cast the darkening shroud of 
oblivion over all the concerns of men. In. 



THE PITYING FATHER, 31 

opposition to all such doctrines we have the 
great facts of nature and the teachings of 
divine revelation. If we study the instincts 
of the lower animals we shall find parental 
affection predominating over every other in- 
stinct. This is true in all the series^ from the 
lowest to the highest. The most timid Avill be- 
come brave and the instinctive love of life is held 
in abeyance by the instinctive love of offspring, 
so that they will expose themselves to death in 
defence of their young. But illustrations 
drawn from man in the same relation, where 
purest affection is conjoined with highest rea- 
son, are much more impressive. Laocoon of 
ancient Troy, when his two sons were enfolded 
in the deadly coils of a huge serpent, en- 
deavored to rescue them, but failing, died in 
the attempt, and the most famous piece of 
statuary in existence commemorates the 
event. So we see even heathen virtue recog- 
nized and appreciated this inherent ele- 
ment of our nature, and classic art embodied 
it in marble that has withstood the ravages 
of many centuries. 

After the battle of Gettysburg a soldier was 
found dead upon the field holding in his hand 



32 THE PITYING FATHER. 

the likenesses of his three small children. 
This evidence of parental love awakened such 
an echo in the hearts of our countrymen that 
it led to the founding of the National Orphan 
Homestead at Gettysburg, where the children 
found a home and their mother became matron. 
This was a better embodiment of the idea of 
sympathy and affection than classic art could 
give, and shows the difference between the age 
of Homer and the dispensation of Christ. 

The last affection that dies in the human 
heart is love for our children. Nay, it does 
not die: it is part of the constitution of the 
soul, and is as immortal as the soul itself. I 
know this sentiment finds a response in the 
heart of every parent; it is not isolated, but 
belongs to the race. And is not this the im- 
press that God has left of his own nature 
upon his works ? These outgoings of purity, 
virtue and affection from sentient beings are 
the thoughts and feelings of God embodied in 
the creation and nature of man. 

There is nothing in literature more touch- 
ingly pathetic than David's lament for 
Absalom. Forgetful of his rebellion and his 
lack of filial affection David mourned him as 



THE PITYING FATHER, 83 

fl i^on. When the news of his death came, 
^' The king was much moved, and went up to 
the chamber over the gate, and wept; and as 
ho went, thus he said, my son Absalom ! 
my son, my son Absalom ! would God I had 
died for thee, Absalom, my son, my son ! " 
The father was superior to the king. Parental 
affection lies deeper than regal robes, and 
dwells alike in the bosom of prince and 
peasant. 

In seeking for evidences of God's sympathy 
with man we must come to divine revelation, 
the great source of information upon divine 
subjects. Promises and expressions that in- 
dicate nearness, sympathy and affection are 
found on every page. The believer and his 
Lord are one. " For thus saith the high and 
lofty One, that inhabiteth eternity, whose 
name is holy ; I dwell in the high and holy 
place, with him also that is of a contrite and 
humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the 
humble and to revive the heart of the contrite 
ones." " The Lord is nisih unto them that 
are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be 
of a contrite spirit." The broken heart never 
bleeds alone ; it always secures the notice of 



34 THE PITYING FATHER, 

God. Sometimes our faith fails, and we say, 
" The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord 
hath forgotten me." But the Lord answers, 
" Can a woman forget her sucking child, that 
she should not have compassion on the son 
of her womb ? Yea, she may forget, yet will 
I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven 
thee upon the pahns of my hands." Isaiah 
lix. 15, 16. The mother may be so dead to 
the feelings of nature as not to heed her 
infant's cry for help, but God will not forget 
his children or let them cry in vain. He 
says, " Thy name is written upon my hand, 
and when I stretch it out to help the needy, 
or support the weak, or wipe the tear from 
the mourner's cheek, I will remember thee. 
When I raise the fallen or bind* up the broken 
heart I will not pass by thee. When I open 
my hand to scatter blessings on the earth, or 
stretch it forth to guide revolving suns in 
their movements, I see thy features upon it, 
not in lights and shadows, but engraven with 
instruments of iron upon Mount Calvary. I 
will never leave thee, I will never, never for- 
sake thee." 

The divine Being acknowledges the parental 



THE PITYING FATHER, 35 

relation, and assumes toward us all the tender- 
ness and sympathy that grows out of it. 
" Like as a father pitieth his children, so the 
Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he 
knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we 
are dust." The gift of the divine Son for our 
salvation is the great climax in the evidence 
of God's regard for man. The Son of God 
made one with the sons of men, and from 
motives of love and pity dying for their salva- 
tion, " Greater love hath no man than this, 
th?Lt a man lay down his life for his friends." 
But Jesus laid down his life for his enemies. 
Jesus Christ is the manifestation of God to 
the world. He is the only visible, tangible 
evidence of God's special regard for us. God's 
providence operating through the laws of 
nature may satisfy our physical wants, but 
nature is cold and unsympathetic, and only 
responds to sacrifice and toil ; but in Christ 
God draws near to us ; we feel the warm im- 
pulses of his own nature. The life current 
of sympathy and love leaps from the heart of 
God through Christ to us. Our souls are not 
orphaned from the divine Father, nor is the 
world wandering without a guide in the 



36 THE PITYING FATHER, 

wilderness of space. If we would know God's 
relations to man w^e must find them in Jesus 
Christ. He is God in action, love and sym- 
pathy toward man. Christ and God are one 
in nature. " I and my Father are one." The 
tenderness and sympathy of Jesus are the 
tenderness and sympathy of God. As he 
loved, pitied and sympathized with men in 
the days of his flesh, so does God always. It 
is in Christ only that God in his gracious 
character is brought within the comprehen- 
sion of man, and only through him can we 
obtain a knowledge of God that will satisfy 
the soul. No view of God that does not in- 
clude Christ or that is not obtained through 
Christ will ever excite in the human bosom 
the feeling of love, confidence or satisfaction. 
If we stand beneath the deep recesses of the 
primeval forests, or in the shadow of the ever- 
lasting mountains, or by Niagara's falling 
flood, the soul will be inspired with awe and 
sublimity; but if we stand within the shadow 
of a simple cross the soul is inspired with 
love. It speaks to the heart of grace and 
salvation. 

Look at Christ in his intercourse with men 



THE PITYING FATHER. 37 

in circumstances to call out his pity, fie 
comforted and fed the poor ; he sustained the 
needy, and alleviated the sufferings of the 
unfortunate. "He bore our sicknesses and 
carried our sorrows." Words of cheer and 
promises of rest fell from his lips, and gracious 
help was extended by his hand. At his 
touch scales fell from the eyes of the blind, 
his word unstopped the ears of the deaf, he 
healed the sick, and to assuage the grief of 
human hearts he raised the dead. At the 
gate of the city of Nain he stopped the funeral 
cortege of the widow's son, raised the young 
man to life, and it is said with an exquisite 
touch of tenderness, "And he delivered him 
to his mother." When Jesus stood bv the 
grave of Lazarus he mingled his tears with 
those of Mary and Martha. But wherefore 
did he weep ? He knew that Lazarus would 
soon be restored to his friends, and their sor- 
row would be turned to joy. But Christ w^ith 
omniscient eye looked up the ages and saw 
every open grave, and in those weeping sis- 
ters he saw represented every tearful eye and 
broken Iwart and smitten household, and the 
tears of Christ were a genuine outburst of 



38 THE PITYING FATHER, 

sympathy, human and divine commingled, 
for human suffering and woe. 

It was one of the promised prerogatives of 
the Messiah, "To appoint unto them that 
mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for 
ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the gar- 
ment of praise for the spirit of heaviness ; 
that they might be called trees of righteous- 
ness, the planting of the Lord that he might 
be glorified." Christ never loses his dis- 
tinctive character. He is " the same yester- 
day, to-day, and forever." 

The scriptures teach that the sympathy of 
God is that of a father. Angelic interest in 
man is comforting and inspiring, but this is 
dearer and closer. Theirs is the sympathy 
of friends; at best but that of elder brothers; 
but the sympathy of God is that of father and 
mother combined. It is supposed the mother's 
heart is more tender and that she yearns over 
her offspring with greater affection than the 
father. It may be so, but we must not forget 
or ignore the mother nature in God. It cer- 
tainly dwells in the bosom of the divine 
Being. "I have nourished and brought up 
children, but they have rebelled against me.'* 



THE PITYING FATHEP.. 39 

^^Can a woman forget her sucking child? 
Yea^ they may forget, yet will I not forget 
thee." The father does not forget his child 
though wandering from home forgetful of all 
filial obligations and absorbed in unprofitable 
pursuits, much less will he forget the dutiful 
and obedient. The mother bends with anx- 
ious hope over the cradle of her babe and 
watches with fluttering heart the ebb and 
flow of lifo, listful to every wail and want. 
But the sympathy and care of God is even 
more constant and unremitting. Weariness 
will overcome and tired nature must seek 
restoration in sleep, but " He that keepeth 
thee will not slumber. Behold, he that 
keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor 
sleep." 

The sympathy of God is guided by infinite 
wisdom. " He knoweth our frame." It does 
not always bring relief from suffering. Not 
because God lacks the power to help us, but 
because he is infinitely wise. Pain may be per- 
mitted to continue for moral ends. We some- 
times say, Lord, take the suffering away. 
But God answers, " I will sustain thee. My 
grace shall be sufficient for thee. As thy 



40 THE PITYING FATHER. 

days so shall thy strength be." If our life 
were the life of the beast merely, no doubt 
God would speedily relieve us. But there is 
in man a soul, and by discipline God designs 
to make us partakers of his holiness. 

The weakness of our frame may give rise to 
thoughts and actions that appear to others 
reprehensible if not sinful, but God is wise to 
judge correctly. " He remembereth that we 
are dust." Often when through ignorance of 
our real condition, human sympathy is denied 
us, divine sympathy flows abundantly, and 
being divine it is infinite and more than com- 
mensurate with our wants. Human and 
divine sympathy is the same in nature, and is 
governed by the same law in manifestation. 

The intensity of human sympathy bears 
some relation to nearness of kin. We feel 
the sorrows of other households, but not so 
keenly as those of our own. Suffering and 
death in other families will elicit our neigh- 
borly sympathy, but it is not as when our 
children suffer or die. Our whole souls go 
out in melting pity for them. But we are 
God's children if we love and obey him. We 
are adopted into his family, and are of the 



THE PITYING FATHER, 41 

household of faith. And " as a father " will 
he watch and sympathize. 

Our sympathy for the unfortunate bears 
some relation to our nearness to the scene of 
suffering. A famine in China or an earth- 
quake in South America may excite a feeling 
of sorrow and a wish that they did not exist, 
but there is not the depth of feeling and 
interest there would be in case our immediate 
neighbors were dying of want, or the tidal 
wave had swept some city on our coast into 
the sea. But God is near to us; we are 
^'made nigh by the blood of Christ." He 
knows our hearts and our homes ; our suffer- 
ings are ever present with him. " In all their 
affliction he was afflicted, and the Angel of his 
presence saved them : in his love and in his 
pity he redeemed them ; and he bare them 
and carried them all the days of old." 

Human sympathy goes out toward the unfor- 
tunate and afflicted. When disease enters our 
dwelling and one of its inmates droops beneath 
its power, the affection and sympathy of all are 
concentrated in him. When by accident one 
becomes maimed or blind or otherwise injured, 
is not the wealth of love and compassion all 



42 THE PITYING FATHER, 

lavished on him ? When the angry billows 
surge and roar and the wild tempest sends 
from sea to land the heralds of its reign, our 
intensest thoughts go out to the voyager at 
sea. When the cannon's loud roar and the 
din and clash of arms betoken the fierce con- 
test raging on the battle-plain, the first in- 
quiry of parental love is like that of David, 
^'Is the young man Absalom safe?" So it is 
with the sympathy of God. The suiFering 
one is the object of his special solicitude and 
care. The one most afflicted, most forgotten, 
whose sun of prosperity has suddenly set in 
night, calls forth the profoundest pity from 
God. The widow struggling alone with ad- 
versity, the fiitherless children thrown upon 
the charities qf a cold world, the neglected 
wife who bears in silence the bitterness of dis- 
appointed hope, the invalid shut in from labor 
while the children cry for bread ; these awaken 
the tenderest sympathies in the bosom of God, 
and on their lot much thought is spent in heaven. 
Jesus the Son of God, the High-Priest of 
our profession, though passed into the heavens, 
" is touched with a feeling of our infirmities." 
The thought of our nearness to him should be 



THE PITYING FATHER. 43 

ever present with us. No poverty, no depth 
of obscurity can conceal us from his knowl- 
edge. Those sorrows that we would not 
divulge to our best friend are known to God, 
and it lightens the load and soothes the pain 
to know the everlasting arms of love and 
mercy are about us. The nearness of our 
relationship to the great Jehovah is inspiring. 
He is our Father^ and all the love and pity 
growing out of the relationship will be cheer- 
fully given. The bond of union between 
Christ and the believer is so close that the 
suffering and faith of men blend with the 
sympathy and love of God. The suffering 
saint, however isolated or whatever his con- 
dition may be, when he lifts his thoughts to 
God will find an answering sympathy. 

" I think this passionate sigh, which half begun 
I stifle back, may reach and stir the plunues 
Of God's calm angel standing in the sun.'* 

Certain it is that love, stronger than ever 
dwelt in human bosom, and sympathy more 
deep and tender than ever flowed from human 
heart, leaps the vast profound between heaven 
and earth and binds the suffering soul to 
Christ, the source of his salvation and the 
object of his hope. 



CHAPTER HI, 

ANGEL MINISTRIES. 

Angels are men in lighter habit clad, 
Nor are our brothers thoughtless of their kin ; 
Yet absent, but not absent from their love. 
Michael has fought our battles ; Raphael sung 
Our triumphs ; Gabriel on our errands flown, 
Sent by the sovereign. — Young, 

Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to do service for 
the sake of them that shall inherit salvation ? — Epistle to Hebrews, 

/^ OD, who is infinite in wisdom and good- 
^^ ness, has created many orders.of beings 
to enjoy life and behold his glory. It is evi- 
dent that man occupies a middle place in the 
creative plan. There are many orders above 
and below us in the scale of life and intelli- 
gence. Of those below, science has revealed 
much. The microscope shows each leaf and 
drop of water to be a world of animated be- 
ings, and brings to the eye an infinitude of 
littleness. 

(46) 



46 ANGEL MINISTRIES, 

Of those above us, we learn something by 
divine revelation. Man is the master-piece 
of God's work in this world — the highest of 
all terrestrial beings. But in other spheres 
are other beings of superior intelligence, grace, 
beauty, and purity, who, though in no sense 
earthly, hold an important but invisible rela- 
tion to us. 

Science has demonstrated the unity of the 
physical universe, and shown the dependence 
and mutual relations of each atom of matter; 
that one law governs the apple that falls from 
the tree, and the suns and planets that roll in 
the most distant realms of space. And have 
we not some reason to suppose that there are 
relations and dependencies among all the in- 
telligences of creation ? Those relations may 
be beyond our comprehension in this life, but 
we think the future will show that all the 
moral intelligences of the universe are, by 
some mysterious chain, bound together as se- 
curely as the physical universe is bound by 
the law of gravitation. 

But what do we know of the relation which 
the higher orders of God's creatures sustain to 
man ? They do not reveal themselves to our 



ANGEL MINISTRIES. 47 

senses, only in exceptional cases, and science 
cannot project itself into the realm they oc- 
cupy. But divine revelation, whose province 
it is to unfold what man could never know, 
has given some facts upon which we base our 
conceptions of angelic beings. It has also 
given some hints that are sublime as indi- 
cating their relations to us. The mind grasps 
with great satisfaction every word that is 
written in regard to them, and yet is unsat- 
isfied. Who would not like to see them ? 
Foremost of the sons of God, nearest the ever- 
lasting Father, highest in rank and greatest 
in mental capacity, sublimest in worship and 
most fervent in devotion, waving their wings 
of fire before the eternal throne. The interest 
we feel in them may arise from the fact that 
we believe in some way our destiny is con- 
nected with theirs, and that some time we may 
rise to the same plane of life and enjoyment. 
The nature and history of angels, the rela- 
tion they sustain to good men, or to the spirits 
of the just made perfect, are subjects of special 
interest to many, particularly those who by 
suffering or bereavement have been brought 
nigh to the spirit world. In the first chapter 



48 ANGEL MINISTRIES. 

of the Epistle to the Hebrews^ the inspired 
writer tells some things in regard to them. He 
shows clearly that they are created beings, and 
therefore inferior to Christ. They are not to 
be worshipped as God or Christ is worshipped. 
They are ministers of Go.d who delight to do 
his bidding. This chapter leaves us in no 
doubt as to their position and employment in 
the economy of grace. "Are they not all 
ministering spirits sent forth to minister unto 
them who shall be heirs of salvation ? " Heb. 
i. 14. The more we understand of their na- 
ture, the better we shall understand and ap- 
preciate their ministries. They are spiritual 
beings. " Who maketh his angels spirits and 
his ministers a flame of fire." The Apostle 
said of Christ, " He took not "upon him the 
nature of angels but the seed of Abraham." 
It is therefore clear that angels differ in nature 
from men. But that was said of the nature 
which Christ assumed, the earthly, physical 
nature, and does not imply that man may not 
in the future world be raised to the same plane 
of life and purity occupied by the angels. It 
is reasonable to suppose that they have bodies, 
not like ours, but highly refined, as bright as 



ANGEL MINISTRIES, 49 

the ligbt, and as subtile as flame, similar no 
doubt to the '^spiritual bodies" of the saints 
after the resurrection. Christ said that the 
saints in the resurrection should be " as the 
angels of God in heaven," Matt. xxii. 30. A 
judicious and learned writer has said, "All 
the knowledge we have of angels is from rev- 
elation, and all the description it gives leads 
us to conclude that they are connected with 
the world of matter as well as with the world 
of mind, and are furnished with organical 
vehicles composed of some refined material 
substance suited to their nature and employ- 
ment." 

When we search the divine word for infor- 
mation, our thoughts run faster than revela- 
tion, and we often wish it would speak when 
it is silent. Are the angels the oldest of the 
sons of God ? It is probable they are. Doubt- 
less they were created long prior to man, or 
even before those long geologic periods which 
science assigns to the formation of the world. 
" Where wast thou when I laid the founda- 
tions of the earth ? declare, if thou hast un- 
derstanding. . . . When the morning stars sang 
together, and all the sons of God shouted for 



50 ANGEL MINISTRIES, 

joy ? " Job xxxviii. 4-7. Are these minis- 
ters of God and servants of the church great 
in number? Of this there can be no doubt. 
Daniel^ speaking of the " ancient of days/' 
said, " Thousand thousands ministered unto 
him, and ten thousand times ten thousand 
stood before him." Again in David, " The 
chariots of God are twenty thousand, even 
thousands of ancrels." Jesus said his Father 
could send more than twelve legions of angels 
for his defence. ^'A multitude of the heavenly 
host" appeared and announced the Saviour's 
birth to the shepherds on the plains of Beth- 
lehem. Paul said, " But ye are come unto 
Mount Zion . . . to an innumerable company 
of angels, to the general assembly and church 
of the first-born." All these passages are in- 
definite, but are designed to indicate large 
numbers. But what are finite numbers in 
comparison with infinite space ? the vast do- 
main of the eternal God, peopled with his 
creatures and crowded with the monuments 
of his power. These celestial beings are " all 
ministering spirits sent forth to minister unto 
them who shall be heirs of salvation." Of 
what vast value and importance is the welfare 



ANGEL MINISTRIES, 51 

of the saints in the estimation of God ! They 
are encircled by the heavenly powers. "For he 
shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep 
thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up 
in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against 
a stone." Ps. xci. 11, 12. How close must be 
our connection with the spirit world ! How 
vigilant the guardianship of angels ! There 
is no poetic license in the declaration, 

"Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth 
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep." 

How rich is the inheritance of God's people ! 
How great the wealth of sympathy that is 
lavished upon them ! The sympathy and 
ministry of angels are beautifully set forth in 
the vision of Jacob. The patriarch was flee- 
ing from his angry brother, perhaps repent- 
ant, and seeking help and protection from 
God. Being weary, he lay upon the ground 
to sleep with a stone for a pillow, and God 
gave him a glorious vision. He saw a ladder 
" set up on the earth, and the top of it 
reached to heaven ; and behold the angels of 
God ascending and descending thereon." It 
is likely this was the time when God ratified 



52 ANGEL MINISTRIES, 

the blessings which Jacob had obtained from 
Isaac, his father, and admitted him into the 
line of the progenitorship of the Messiah ; 
and, therefore, he became an object of pecu- 
liar interest to the celestial inhabitants. But 
it indicates to us at least this truth, that 
heaven and earth are connected by the minis- 
try of angels. Christ himself once withdrew 
the veil, and revealed to us the deep interest 
felt by the angels of God in the welfare of 
man. As the shepherd rejoices over the res- 
toration of the wandering sheep, or the woman 
at the finding of the lost coin, " Likewise I 
say unto you, there is joy in the presence of 
the angels of God over one sinner that re- 
penteth.'* 

The scriptures give many evidences of an- 
gelic sympathy, and show the part they take 
in the government of the world. In the 
olden time angel visits were not "few and 
far between." They came frequently with 
special messages from God. They may not 
now come for the same purpose : the sacred 
canon is complete, and we need nothing sup- 
plementary to the revelation of God. But 
under all dispensations angels have been em- 



ANGEL MINISTRIES, 53 

ployed to accomplish God's purposes of justice, 
mercy, and love. Two angels came to Lot 
in Sodom, and said, " The Lord hath sent us 
to destroy this place." The first-born of 
Egypt, both of man and beast, was destroyed 
by an angel. An angel was sent to rout the 
Assyrian army, and in one night one hundred 
and eighty-five thousand were destroyed. 
Angels are ministers of God who do his 
pleasure with glad and willing hearts, w^hat- 
ever it may be ; but we may presume that 
any work of mercy and love is more pleas- 
urable to them than the execution of judg- 
ment, as it is more consonant with their nature 
and with the character of their Lord. 

Angelic protection is frequently promised to 
the saints of the Most High, and these prom- 
ises do not belong to any one dispensation but 
to all. The king of Syria sent '^a great host, 
and they came by night and compassed the 
city," where the prophet Elisha lived- in order 
to take him prisoner. ^'And when the ser- 
vant of the man of God was risen early, and 
gone forth, behold, a host compassed the city 
both with horses and chariots. And his ser- 
vant said unto him, Alas! my master, how 



54 AXGEL MINISTRIES, 

shall we do? And he answered^ Fear not: 
for they that be with us are more than they 
that be with them. And Elisha prayed, and 
said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that 
he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes 
of the young man ; and* he saw : and, behold, 
the mountain was full of horses and chariots 
of fire round about Elisha." Daniel accounted 
for his wonderful deliverance, when cast into 
the lions' den, by angelic ministry. In an- 
swer to the king s inquiry as to the ability of 
the God whom he served to deliver him, he 
said, " king, live forever. My God hath 
sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' 
mouths that they have not hurt me." 

Under the new dispensation we have many 
instances of a similar character. Peter was 
delivered from prison by an angel. Persecu- 
tion for righteousness' sake had confined him 
wathin strong prison walls, and deprived him 
of the coveted companionship of the disciples 
of Christ. He slept between two Roman 
soldiers, and was bound with two chains. 
But what are Roman soldiers and iron chains 
when an angel of God beckons us onward ? 
The angel touched the apostle and he arose ; 



ANGEL MINISTRIES. 55 

the fetters fell from his limbs a broken^ shape- 
less mass. It was dark night, but no torch 
was needed ; the glory of the angel lit up the 
prison corridors. The senses of the sentinels 
were held in abeyance; the iron gate, moved 
by an unseen hand, swung back, and Peter 
was restored to liberty, and to the disciples 
who had been praying for his deliverance. 
When the word of God mightily prevailed in 
Jerusalem, and the apostles were put in the 
common prison, " the angel of the Lord by 
night opened the prison doors, and brought 
them forth, and said. Go, stand and speak in 
the temple to the people all the words of this 
life." How wonderful are the dealings of 
God with his people ! 

Often, w^hen our hearts have been filled with 
fear, we have needed an Elisha to pray that 
our eyes may be opened, for if God should, 
give us power to see spiritual objects, we 
would find the horsemen and chariots of the 
Lord all around us. Many of the providen- 
tial deliverances wrought out for us by an un- 
seen hand have been by the ministry of 
angels. Are we not often surprised by some 
narrow escape from danger? by some sud- 



56 ANGEL 3IINISTRIES, 

den warning given of impending calamity? 
In days of old, with a sublimer faith and a 
keener spiritual vision, God's servants would 
have seen an angel, or felt a consciousness of 
his presence ; but in these da3^s, in which the 
tendency is strong toward a materialistic 
faith, and a denial of the supernatural, men 
regard these things as only " remarkable co- 
incidences." It is entirely consonant with 
scripture teaching to regard these deliverances 
as providential by the ministry of angels. I 
w^ill relate an occurrence illustrative of this 
that came under my own observation. A 
mother and child lay sleeping, when, by acci- 
dent, a neighbor, at dead of night, fired his 
gun, loaded with buckshot, into the house. 
The charge entered the bed and riddled the 
clothes, but the sleepers were uninjured, and 
did not awake. In the morning, without 
knowledge of what had happened, the first 
words uttered by the mother were, "Another 
night is passed ; ' The angel of the Lord en- 
campeth around about them that fear him, 
and he delivereth them.' " It seems as if the 
divine One would have us know by whose 
agency the deliverance had been efiected. 



ANGEL MINISTRIES. 57 

It is the province of angels to comfort those 
in distress. When Christ fought so fiercely 
with the tempter, and successfully foiled his 
wily foe, as the devil left him, " angels came 
and ministered unto him." It is often so with 
Christ's followers : having overcome, and see- 
ing the tempter flee, they are filled with joy 
and comfort. Again, in the garden of Geth- 
semane, in the hour of the Saviour's mortal 
agony, forsaken of men, put to grief and 
bruised by the divine Father, as he drank the 
bitter cup, ^^ There appeared an angel unto 
him from heaven, strengthening him." Per- 
haps no angel ever flew on swifter wing, or 
bore a message of love or comfort more .grate- 
fully. It was a service that the highest arch- 
angel must have coveted. When Paul was 
in danger of shipwreck on his way to Rome, 
he was comforted by an angel, who said, 
" Fear not, Paul ; thou must be brought be- 
fore Caesar : and, lo, God hath given thee all 
them that sail with thee." 

What cheer and comfort this contains for 
us ! Besides the forces and instrumentalities 
that belong to earth and the sphere of human 
action, God has at his command for the 



58 ANGEL MINISTRIES, 

exigencies of our temporal life heavenly and 
angelic agencies. We must not believe that 
angelic ministries all belonged to the past; 
angels are as active now as ever, but no in- 
spired pen records their deeds. History tells 
of some. The martyr youth of the early 
church who bore his suflferino-s with heroic 
fortitude was asked what sustained him. He 
replied, "An angel stood by when my suffer- 
ings were at the 'vorst, and pointed heaven- 
ward." They are now " ministering spirits." 
We may see no light, hear no sound, and yet 
be under their influence. Our senses are not 
adapted to angelic or heavenly communica- 
tions, but to the inner consciousness of the 
believer they make themselves known and 
felt. 

*' Times of joy and times of woe 
Each an angel presence know." 

In times of danger they protect, casting 
about us an invisible shield, warding off the 
darts of the wicked one, and guiding our feet, 
unconsciously to us, from the snares set in 
our path. In times of woe they strengthen, 
though not perceived by the senses. Acting 



ANGEL MINISTRIES, 59 

as messengers of God we know not how great 
or important their agency. * 

The Christian soul chastened and subdued 
by affliction and bereavement may expect 
angelic sympathy, especially when sorrowing 
for the dead. While Mary lingered by the 
sepulchre of Jesus weeping, as she wept she 
stooped down and looking in beheld " two 
angels sitting one at the head and the other 
at the feet, where the body of Jesus had 
lain." Angels are oftenest visible tlirough 
human tears. Jacob's vision was given when 
his head lay upon " a stone for a pillow." It 
is from hard trials and stony griefs that we 
are lifted high enough to commune Avith 
angels. When we look into the tomb that 
has swallowed our most cherished hopes and 
dearest earthly joys, w^e may see celestial 
beings who will say, ^- Why seek ye the living 
among the dead ? " Thus we are taught by 
the angels that those whom we mourn as 
dead, and seek among the graves, are not 
there.. The nobler, better part, that loved 
and was loved, has gone. Liberated from the 
"nditions that bound them to earth, they 
we, through the grave^ emerged into life, 



60 ANGEL MINISTRIES. 

and stand with the angels who have never 
known and never shall know death. 

We too often rob ourselves of the comfort 
this is designed to give by unbelief; by mate- 
rializing and explaining away the super- 
natural. If angels were so far beyond us in 
nature and capacity as to have nothing in 
common with men, we should lose all in- 
terest in them, and they would be undesirable 
as companions. It is the thought of their 
sympathy with us and their kindred to us 
that make them objects of special interest. 
Father Taylor, of Boston, an able but eccentric 
preacher, when dying was addressed thus, 
'* There's sweet rest in heaven." " Go there 
if you want to," said the old man. The 
friend persisted, ^' Think of the angels that 
will welcome you." " What do I want with 
angels? I want folks; but," he added, 
^^ angels are folks," and the thought seemed 
to comfort him. Yes, angels are folks; not 
so far removed in nature, capacity or tastes 
as to be unfit associates for man. They are 
elder brothers whose delight it will be to un- 
ravel to us the deep mysteries of past eternity, 
and bring to us a knowledge of the vast 



ANGEL MINISTRIES, 61 

regions of outlying space, whither their swift 
and tireless wings have borne them. 

Another important office is performed by 
the angels toward the church on earth. They 
are sent to conduct the souls of the departed 
dead to their heavenly and eternal home. 
This is not conjecture. ''And it came to pass 
that the beggar died, and was carried by the 
angels into Abraham's bosom." So doubtless 
it is with all the children of God. We can 
know nothing of the locality of heaven, and 
the pathway thither to us is an untrodden one, 
but* the soul is not left a stranger and wan- 
derer in the wilderness of space, but angels 
bear it to its heavenly home. The infant de- 
parting from its mother's bosom loses naught 
in tenderness or love in the exchange 
from parental to angelic arms. Age, in its 
decrepitude leaning upon a stronger arm, loses 
nothing in care or kindness in the exchange 
from filial to angelic guidance. The facts of 
experience attest the teachings of scripture. 
The saints of God often speak of it. The 
writer once attended the funeral of a young 
man and learned the following facts in rela- 
tion to his death. He was sick for months, 



62 ANGEL MINISTRIES, 

having returned from the battle-fields of his 
country in an emaciated condition. Some 
weeks before he died he said an angel came 
and conversed with him, saying, " When it is 
the Master's will I will come for you." One 
day when conversing with friends he sud- 
denly ceased to speak, and looking toward 
the wdndow as though attracted by some un- 
usual sight, he exclaimed, "ISly angel has 
come," and at once sunk upon his pillow and 
expired. But a few days from this writing a 
young lady, intelligent and finely educated, 
moving in the first ranks of society, fell sick 
of diphtheria. When her attendants were 
applying some outward application, she said, 
"Put it where George held his hand," but^ 
said one, " Your brother George is dead : he 
died a year ago." " I understand that," she 
said, "but George is here, and has been for 
some hours, and held mv shoulder and soothed 
the pain." Some time afterward she rose in 
the bed and stretching her arms out, she 
exclaimed, " Now, my dear brother George, 
you have come for me and I will go with 
you," and at once the spirit took its flight. 
Say not that this is imagination, the wild 



ANGEL MINISTRIES, 63 

phantasy of disordered minds : it accords well 
with God's truth. 

" To children, and saintly women and gifted 
sages, the vision of Stephen is repeated in 
wondrous variety and fulness. Even before 
they enter through the veil the life beyond 
envelops them in its lustre, and words of 
farewell are lost in speeches and looks ad- 
dressed to the unseen (by us) multitudes who 
have come to welcome them home. Unbelief 
scouts such revelations. Let it. The belief 
of them is precious to the instincts and best 
reason and most lustrous faith of the purest 
and wisest spirits that ever have graced or do 
now grace the earth. If, as appears from ex- 
press revelation, and from reason as well, the 
doctrine is true that man is a spirit ; that 
there is a great spiritual universe ; that the 
good and holy are a divine brotherhood ; that 
flesh and blood are the walls of separation 
between this and that; that death opens a 
door into its glory, and that the spiritual con- 
sciousness is quickened and heightened on its 
entrance ; and, in fact, that life is a journey 
to its felicities ; why not such experiences in 
the dying moment? When the spirit reaches 



64 ANGEL 3nNISTRlES. 

its goal, when it comes to the line where two 
worlds meet, when it is, in fact, almost 
through and over, why not wave farewells 
and greetings to those on this and that side 
as it passes the river? Personally I have seen 
too much to doubt. I no more dare disbelieve 
than I can question my own present con- 
sciousness." — Bishop Foster — Life Beyond the 
Grave ^ p. 143. 

So long as the constitution of nature re- 
mains as God made it, and the laws and 
affinities of moral intelligences remain as God 
made them, so long will the supernatural be 
interwoven with our present being. As we 
approach the eternal city the veil that hangs 
between us and the spirit world -becomes 
attenuated, and the sight of dying saints may 
pierce it. Many of them, standing on the 
verge of both worlds, have caught glimpses of 
the glory beyond, have seen familiar faces 
and heard the songs of the redeemed. 



CHAPTER IV. 

LIGHT IN THE VALLEY. 

This is the bud of being, the dim dawn, 

The twilight of our day, the vestibule ; 

Life's theatre as yet is shut, and Death, 

Strong death, alone can heave the massy bar, 

This gross impediment of clay remove, 

And make us embryos of existence free ! — Young, 

For we must needs die. — Bible, 

TT^EATH is a reaper whose sickle leaves 
-^-^ no sheaf ungathered ; a prince whose 
power over this world is absolute, and whose 
mandate all must obey. It therefore comes 
home to the heart of every intelligent human 
being as the most solemn of all events con- 
nected with our history in time. The man 
who never thinks of death and its solemnities 
is lost to moral sensibility, and is dead while 
he lives. 

The views and feelings with which death 
is regarded are diverse. Some fear it^ others 

5 (65) 



66 LIGHT IN THE VALLEY. 

court it; some have spiritualized it into an 
angel, others have degraded it into a monster. 
^' The rhetorician's art has subjoined to it the 
idea of personification, while the poet's imagi- 
nation has lent him his meagre aspect and his 
naked bones." Death is not what most men 
think it is. Our natural fear and dread of 
death, and our distorted imagination, will 
cause us to clothe it in the most unsightly 
robes. 

" Man makes a death which nature never made, 
Then on the point of hLs own fancy falls ; 
And feels a thousand deaths in fearing one." 

When death is disrobed of all the trappings 
of fancy, and all the features imparted by fear, 
and is viewed in the light of revelation, it 
loses its ghastly appearance. But fear of 
death is natural to man. There are but few 
who have attained that firmness of moral 
courage where fear or dread of physical death 
does not exist. Much ejEFort has been made 
to divest men of this. Philosophers have 
grappled with it, even those who have known 
nothing of the Christian faith. But all efforts 
have failed to remove it; death has still 
reigned, and men have been in bondage all 



LIGHT IN THE VALLEY, 67 



their lifetime through fear of death. We 
have known some of the most devout men of 
God, who, while they triumphed in view of 
the glorious reward that awaited them, still 
had a natural dread of death. We do not 
like to handle a serpent, even though its 
sting is drawn. Did not even Christ share 
in this ? " Who in the days of his flesh, 
when he had offered up prayers and supplica- 
tions, with strong crying and tears unto Him 
that was able to save him from death." His 
prayers in Gethsemane were offered in such 
perfect resignation to the divine will that they 
were heard approvingly, though the deliver- 
ance asked for was not and could not be 
granted. "And there appeared an angel unto 
him from heaven, strengthening him." 

Among theologians death is said to consist 
in the separation of soul and body. By others 
it is more accurately said that death does not 
consist in this separation, but that the separa- 
tion is the consequence of death. The body, 
by accident or disease, is stricken down, be- 
comes motionless, and can no longer perform 
any of its functions ; it is therefore useless as 
a medium for the souVs operations, and is 



68 LIGHT IN THE VALLEY, 

left as a tenement that has crumbled into 
ruins. 

It will be of interest to look at death from 
the standpoint of the Scriptures. The Old 
Testament speaks of death as " a return to 
the dust." " For dust thou art, and unto 
dust shalt thou return." " Then shall the 
dust return to the earth as it was ; and the 
spirit shall return unto God who gave it." 
This shows the end of the physical system 
and the destiny of the soul. The one returns 
to its mother earth and is dissolved to its orig- 
inal elements, and the other returns to the 
Father of spirits. ^* Thou hidest thy face, 
they are troubled; thou takest away their 
breath, they die, and return to the dust." 
Both in the Old and New - Testaments the 
body is not unfrequently compared to a tent 
or house, and the soul as the occupant. This 
tent is represented as taken down or destroyed, 
while the soul moves on to another house or 
mode of existence. Paul says, " For we know 
that, if our earthly house of this tabernacle were 
dissolved, we have a building of God, a house 
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." 
In the same connection Paul -speaks of death 



i 



LIGHT IN THE VALLEY. 69 

as the unclothing of one's self, laying aside 
the body as a garment ; and the soul as being 
clothed upon with its house which is from 
heaven. 

Sleep is also frequently used by the in- 
spired writers to denote death. " Our friend 
Lazarus sleepeth." "She is not dead, but 
sleeping." Thus Christ spoke of his friend 
at Bethany and of the ruler's daughter. So 
Paul spoke of the witnesses of Christ's resur- 
rection. " Some are fallen asleep." '' Fallen 
asleep in Christ." The primitive Christians 
represented death by the same figure, perhaps, 
more frequently than in any other way. The 
rude inscriptions and symbolic figures found 
in the catacombs of Rome speak of " sleeping 
in Christ," and " sleeping in the peace of God." 
The figure of sleep is a very appropriate one 
with which to represent death. When weary 
and worn we regard sleep as the most desir- 
able condition. We lie down to rest confident 
that we shall awake refreshed for the duties 
of life. May we not lie down in death confi- 
dent that we shall awake to a new life, pre- 
pared for duties and enjoyments in another 
sphere ? May not our flesh rest in hope, be- 



70 LIGHT IN THE VALLEY, 

lieving that the body shall rise again in the 
morning of the resurrection ? 

In the Bible and in the writings of the 
primitive Christians, death is spoken of as " a 
departure/' a ^^ going away." Paul said, 
" having a desire to depart to be with Christ." 
" I am now ready to be offered, the time of 
my departure is at hand." The figure is now 
used by the devout. A young lady, speaking 
of the decease of her mother, said : " Our 
mother went out from us ten years ago." It 
is pleasant to think of our friends as having 
gone to another home, or into another room 
of our Father's mansion, to another place of 
life and enjoyment. One of our Sunday- 
school scholars died recently. She comforted 
her widowed mother by saying : " I am going 
to another home ; do not cry for me ; I am 
going to Jesus to live with him, and dear 
papa and brother ; they'll be glad to see me 
coming. I will think of you when I am in 
my glory home." By these beautiful figures 
the scriptures rob death of its terrors, and 
inspire the human heart with hope. In this 
they differ from sceptical philosophy. Epi- 
curus undertook to relieve men of the fear of 



LIGHT IN THE VALLEY, 71 

death by representing that there is nothing 
beyond death, which to many minds would 
be the most fearful calamity that death could 
bring ; the utter extinction of being. Jesus 
Christ gives us an eternal life. 

" Death is the problem of the ages. Life 
is according to visible and working law. Not 
so death." — 6r. Haven. It seems like an in- 
tervention, an arrest of that which has al- 
most infinite possibilities. In regard to the 
origin of death, the record of inspiration is 
this : " Sin entered into the world, and death 
by sin." We understand this to apply to 
human death. The scriptures assure us that 
man was at first placed, conditionally, under 
the law of life. But we cannot suppose that 
even in man's innocence in Eden the thought 
of death was unknown to him. " Must not 
the revolving year have been marked by the 
opening and fall of earth's foliage, and the 
ripening, consumption, and decay of earth's 
fruitage? It is certain from the discoveries 
of science that animal, vegetable, and insect 
life was subject to the law of death before the 
creation of man, and must have been evident 
to our first parents in paradise. While this 



72 LIGHT IN THE VALLEY, 

fact was present to tliem, it must have given 
a clear conception of their privileges and 
their obligations to the Creator, who had made 
them an exception by placing them under the 
law of life. And it must have been an addi- 
tional incentive to obedience when the law 
was given them, ^^But of the tree of the 
knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not 
eat of it: for in the day tl\at thou eatest 
thereof thou shalt surely die." By the death 
that reigned around them they could obtain 
an idea of the magnitude of the evil threat- 
ened. 

It is evident from the original covenant 
^ade with man that God designed he should 
not die. " The threatening of death as the 
penalty of a breach of the covenant is rightly 
tjnderstood to imply the promise of deathless 
and incorruptible life so long as the covenant 
should stand. And the tree of life in the 
midst of the garden, if not by its physical 
virtue the means of perpetual renovation, was 
certainly the sacramental pledge of God's 
purpose to preserve life inviolate, while man 
was steadfast to the covenant. Thus runs the 
tenor of the covenant, or constitution, under 



LIGHT IN THE VALLEY, 73 

which man's life was originally given and 
held : ' Thou shalt not eat of the tree of 
knowledge of good and evil, for in the day 
thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.' 
And in terms equally explicit to the trans- 
gression of the law is the entrance and reign 
of death over man ascribed : ' By one man 
sin entered into the world, and death by sin ; 
and so death passed upon all men, for that all 
have sinned.'" — McClintock. The preserva- 
tion of man from death in a state of inno- 
cence would not be more wonderful than the 
preservation of the angels in immortal life, 
and requires no greater watch-care of Divine 
Providence than is indicated in the words of 
Christ : " But the very hairs of your heads are 
all numbered." Having a soul unstained by 
sin, and a body perfect, as it came from the 
hand of its Creator, with free access to the 
tree of life, which, whatever it was, was in- 
tended to supply all the wastes of physical 
life, and under the care of an ever watchful 
providence, man must have been immortal, for 
these are the conditions of immortality. 

If sin be the cause of death, the question 
will arise, was this world designed to be man's 



74 LIGHT IN THE VALLEY. 

permanent home ? Of this we have no record, 
but we incline to the opinion that it was not. 
There are evident indications in man's men- 
tal and spiritual constitution that he was de- 
signed for a higher and nobler sphere. He 
was possessed of powers that could never find 
scope for exercise in this world, and these 
powers without a scope for exercise would be 
as much out of place as the wings of a bird 
without a sphere in which to fly. But if God 
designed to bring man in his primeval state 
to a more extended field of action and thought, 
there were other ways known to infinite wis- 
dom without the dissolution of the body. 
The case of Enoch and Elijah are illustra- 
tions. ^^ Enoch walked with God, and he was 
not, for God took him." And Elijah went up 
to heaven "in a chariot of fire." In these 
God has given us illustrations of what he 
could do for men, purifying and rendering 
them capable of immediate translation. In 
this way man without sin could have been 
raised to a higher state of being without 
death. The change experienced by these 
men of God was equivalent to that which 
will be experienced by the saints in death 



LIGHT IN THE VALLEY, 75 

and the resurrection. But in its essential 
features it was not death ; there was no decay 
of bodily powers, no disruption of the rela- 
tion between body and soul, no departure 
from the earthly house, no lying down to 
sleep, but a translation from earth to heaven ; 
and in the transition such a change as God in 
his wisdom saw was necessary for the new 
sphere into which they were removed. 

But we are now subject to death. " It is 
appointed unto man once to die." And death 
comes to us under the remedial plan. Though 
a part of the penalty attached to the breach 
of the Edenic covenant, it was not rescinded 
when the Saviour was promised. But we know 
that God is merciful and kind, not malevolent 
and vindictive in nature. His judgments 
upon the impenitent may be severe, but his 
goodness and mercy in Christ Jesus our Lord 
are infinite toward those that love him and 
keep his commandments. We have reason to 
believe that even death, as administered by a 
merciful God, may have its ministry of good.^ 
There must be a brighter side than that which 
commonly appears. The ghastly ruins wrought 
by the fell destroyer must have an antidote, a 



76 LIGHT IN THE VALLEY, 

compensation which can be seen from some 
standpoint of truth; and it must be our en- 
deavor to find it. 

Man is now sinful and degraded, and that 
which would have been suited to a sinless 
state would be unsuited to his present fallen 
condition. Taking men as they are there is 
no doubt but " Dust thou art, and unto dust 
shalt thou return/' is a wise and just decree. 
The feet that God has chosen it is presumptive 
evidence that it is best for the interests of 
man. In many instances, in God's dealings 
with us, he has brought victory from defeat, 
and made the wrath of man to praise him. 
So in this instance God has brought good out 
of evil, and made death subserve our highest 
welfare by making it the pathway to eternal 
glory. 

Man, before the fall, must have been the 
representative of all that was beautiful, great 
and good in the creature. Erect and graceful 
in form, comprehensive in mental endow- 
ments and high in moral attributes. Happi- 
ness, purity and perpetual youth were written 
upon his brow. But in our present state man 
is the synonym for depravity, imbecility and 



LIGHT IN THE VALLEY. 77 

decrepitude. The most advanced in intelli- 
gence are but children relatively. Sir Isaac 
Newton, one of the greatest minds, said, in 
regard to knowledge, " I am but a child play- 
ing along the strand with a few pebbles, while 
the vast ocean of truth lies before me." 

So deeply seated and radical are the evils 
entailed upon us by sin, they could not be 
overcome and at the same time conserve the 
highest interests of the race ; and God in his 
infinite wisdom determined to destroy the 
body by death, and rear a new and more 
glorious one for the soul's occupancy. 

The vast sum of eternal truth that lies 
around us cannot be discovered by the human 
mind in its present state. There is an infinity 
of mystery around, above, beneath us, and we 
cannot grasp it because of the hindrances and 
barriers imposed upon us by our present con- 
dition. The mind may not have reached its 
maximum of strength or its utmost limit of 
power, but its limitations are positive and 
peremptory : thus far shalt thou go and no 
farther. In our present state of sin and con- 
sequent physical and mental weakness, with 
no hope of a translation, death becomes neces- 



78 LIGHT m THE VALLEY. 

sary to the full development of our mental 
and moral nature. An impulse in the direc- 
tion of a greater development is given us in 
the experimental knowledge of Jesus Christ 
our Lord. The power, of the Holy Ghost is 
quickening to the human mind. It brings a 
new class of ideas and emotions, new views 
of God, of heaven and our relations to the 
universe, new desires and aspirations which 
can find their complement only in God. 

Death, or a change equivalent to it, becomes 
a necessity to our full development, because 
the present world is unsuited to the immortal 
capacities of th6 mind. God created man 
with a wonderful capacity for knowledge. 
We have evidence of this in his mighty 
achievements under adverse circumstances. 
Witness his improvements in the arts and 
sciences. How he takes hold of the latent 
but tremendous forces of nature, and makes 
them subserve his interests. He sends his 
messages upon the wings of the lightning, 
creates steam and applies it in a thousand 
varied forms. He delves to the bowels of the 
earth and brings up its treasures, and rides as 
swiftly as if the clouds were his chariot. In 



LIGHT IN THE VALLEY, 79 

the rocks and stones of the earth he reads the 
history of creation, and points out its succes- 
sive epochs. He looks abroad into space and 
ranges in thought its vast regions, filled with 
the splendors of the Deity and crowded with 
the monuments of his power. Measures and 
weighs the heavenly bodies, counts their num- 
ber and calls their names. Discovers the 
subtile force that binds the universe in one, 
accounts for the varied phenomena of the 
celestial orbs, and reveals to his fellow-man 
the great thoughts of God as they are em- 
bodied in the material universe. Nature, 
providence and grace are the subjects of his 
research and the themes of his song, and 
when he has pursued these to the utmost 
limit of his ability and crowds upon the bar- 
riers that stand between him and eternity, he 
still sighs for advancement. His thirst for 
knowledge is insatiable, for God has given 
him desires as boundless as the universe and 
lasting as eternity. This world is too limited 
for the full exercise and development of such 
vast powers. Gladly would the mind soar 
from world to world were it not trammelled 
by a gross, material body ; but until death it 



60 LIGHT IN THE VALLEY. 

m 

is confined to the narrow limits of this sphere, 
which is but an atom in the great creation of 
God. 

The medium also through which the mind 
operates becomes so much impaired that it 
cannot show its full strength or reach its 
highest possible attainment. The mind is 
unaffected by age, spirit knows nothing of 
decay, but the medium through which it 
touches and affects the outer world is soon 
worn and blunted by age and use. The 
avenues of sense become clogged or blocked 
up, and the intercourse of the mind with the 
world becomes imperfect. The brain softens 
and mental action becomes weak and childish. 
The eye becomes dim and the ear heavy, the 
limbs totter, the hand forgets its. cunning, and 
the w^hole frame is feeble and emaciated. The 
mind is often clear and strong as ever, while 
the house of its tabernacle is crumbling into 
dust. The soul is majestic, though the body 
be in ruins. Thomas Carlyle's mind was yet 
unclouded when his hand became paralyzed 
by the use of the pen ; he then learned to 
w^rite with his left hand until that too forgot 
its cunning. But when no longer able to 



LIGHT IN THE VALLEY. 81 

iCiold a book he read much, and his mind, un- 
impaired, communed with great authors, living 
and dead. If the soul were freed from in- 
cumbrances and given a medium as perfect as 
itself, it would remain strong and active, un- 
affected by the lapse of ages. 

The body we have now is unsuited to the 
future glory, as that is revealed in the word 
of God. The eye is dazzled by the noonday 
sun, much less could it endure the "exceed- 
ing great and eternal weight of glory." 

" Heaven's fuller effluence mocks our dazzled sight, 
Too great its swiftness and too strong its light." 

We must be " clothed upon with our house 
which is from heaven," and put on robes more 
refined before we can appear in the presence 
of the " blessed and only Potentate, the King 
of kings and Lord of lords, w^ho only hath 
immortality, dwelling in light which no man 
can approach unto; whom no man hath seen 
or can see." We have illustrations of the 
effect of divine glory on man recorded in the 
scriptures. When Moses approached the 
visible manifestations of God's presence on 
Mount Sinai, he was sustained by miraculous 

6 



82 LIGHT IN THE VALLEY. 

power. " The sight of the glory of the Lord 
was like devouring fire/' and he said, '^ I ex- 
ceedingly fear and quake." When Isaiah 
entered the temple, beheld the glory of the 
Lord and heard the responsive cry of the 
seraphim, he uttered this affecting complaint : 
" Woe is me, for I am undone ; because I am 
a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the 
midst of a people of unclean lips, for mine eyes 
have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." When 
Christ was transfigured, " His face did shine 
like the sun, and his raiment was white as the 
light." While Peter was congratulating him- 
self and desiring to make the place a perma- 
nent abode for the whole company, a bright 
light overshadowed them and increased the 
weight of glory, and a voice proceeded from 
the cloud, saying, " This is my beloved Son, in 
w^hom I am well pleased." The disciples 
were dismayed at the voice and dazzled with 
the glory, " and they fell on their face and 
were sore afraid." In these instances we see 
the w^eakness of human nature w^hen brought 
in contact with the glory of the Lord. 

The Scriptures also give illustrations of the 
strength and glory of those who have passed 



LIGHT IN THE VALLEY. 83 

ttirough the change of death or translation. 
Elijah in his glorified humanity, and Moses in 
his disembodied state, both are able to look 
upon the ineffable glory of the Deity without 
a dimming veil. So shall we when we have 
passed through the valley of the shadow of 
death and have entered upon our future state 
of existence. In the transfiguration the veil 
was withdrawn, heaven came down to earth 
and we get a glimpse of the state of the glori- 
fied. We know not that Moses is an exception 
to the great multitude of the saved, including 
our own loved ones who have escaped to 
celestial habitations. We have no reason to 
suppose he differs from other happy souls who 
await the resurrection, either in the nature of 
his powers or the character of his glory. But 
this glory is withheld from those in the flesh, 
^'For we must needs die," '^For flesh and 
blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." 

When the soul is cleansed by the blood of 
Christ, it receives a new impulse in the 
direction of goodness and immortality. It 
longs for perfect purity in its nature and sur- 
roundings : pure associations, objects of sight, 
pursuit and enjoyment. It longs for the time 



84 LIGHT IN THE VALLEY. 

when it shall be unfettered and can bask in 
the sunlight of God's face. These can never 
be enjoyed in this life. The soul must burst 
its fetters and rise to a higher plane of exist- 
ence before it can find full scope for its powers, 
or associations and surroundings adapted to 
its nature. 

There are many mysteries that cannot be 
solved here. The lover of natural scenery, 
while in the valley, fails to see the beauties 
that are around him. His sweep of vision is 
too contracted ; he can only see the hillsides 
that hem him in, or here and there a moun- 
tain painted against the sky. The effect of 
hill and dale, of the deep ravine and tall 
mountain peak, the forest and stream, and the 
relation of all to the harmonj^ of the landscape 
are undiscovered, until he ascends some tall 
eminence from which to look, with unob- 
structed vision, upon the broad field of beauty 
that lies before him. So we must find some 
higher stand-point than this earth from which 
to view the events of time in order to under- 
stand their true relations. This will be found 
when the spirit is disembodied. When 
eternity with its infinite possibilities lies be- 



LIGHT IN THE VALLEY. 85 

fore US, we shall find it the adequate inter- 
preter of all the mysteries of time. " What 
thou knovvest not now thou shalt know here- 
after." 

In all the dealings of God with man his 
attributes are wonderfully displayed : his jus- 
tice in the execution of the penalty of the 
broken law; his holiness in the abhorrence 
with which he regards sin ; his wisdom and 
mercy in devising and executing a plan of 
redemption for soul and body, and making 
even the result of transgression the medium 
through which the soul escapes to a higher 
life. Should not these considerations reconcile 
us to the fact of death ? When the blood of 
Christ has washed us from all sin, and we are 
free from its consequences, we may rejoice in 
hope of the glory of God, and with Simeon 
say, " Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant de- 
part in peace ; for mine eyes have seen thy 
salvation." 

If I can know nothing of God's immense 
universe beyond the narrow limits of th^ 
globe on which I live, without dying, I ani 
reconciled to death. Let me lay aside thii.i 
heavy clay, and ray spirit be in some lighta; 



Se LIGHT IN THE VALLEY. 

habit clad^ in which I may fly from world to 
world and see and investigate the stupendous 
works of my Creator. Can I never enjoy the 
purity for which I sigh, in association and 
surroundings, without dying? Then let me 
pass through the dark valley and enter the 
sinless regions beyond. Can I never have a 
more perfect medium for mental operations 
than I now possess in this frail body, racked 
with pain and subject to weakness? Then 
let me exchange it for that which is inde-* 
structible. If I cannot know the mysteries 
of my being and my relations to the universe 
while in the body, then I w^ould gladly escape 
where I shall no longer " see through a glass 
darkly, but face to face, and know even as 
also I am known." If death shall perform 
this ministry for me, I gladly welcome it in 
God's own time. If by death I can be 
removed from the law of death under which 
I was placed by sin, and be brought under the 
law of life that reigns in heaven, then let me 
die. 

" Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife, 
And let me languish into life." 

Christianity alone can teach us the true 



LIGHT IN THE VALLEY, 87 

ministry of death. False philosophy and 
infidelity attempt to relieve the mind of fear 
by saying that death ends all ; but how blank 
and cheerless is such unbelief! it does not 
find one sympathetic chord in the human 
heart. Infidelity wrote over the gate of the 
far-famed cemetery, that overlooks from its 
mournful brow the gay and crowded metropolis 
of France, " Death is an eternal sleep." How 
blighting to human hopes, how desolating to 
human affections, is the influence of such un- 
belief! Pass beneath the portals of that city 
of the dead and'let the full effect of atheism 
be felt, and the soul that under the influence 
of truth will expand with thought, glow with 
hope and burn with holy desire, will shrink 
and shrivel as the opening flower in the 
breath of frost or fire. 

A traveller speaks thus of the inscriptions 
upon the grave-stones : " I read on those cold 
marble tombs the lamentations of bereave- 
ment, in every affecting variety of phrase. 
On the tomb of youth it was written, ' Its 
broken-hearted parents, who spent their days 
in tears and their nights in anguish, had laid 
down here their treasure and their hope.' 



88 LIGHT IN THE VALLEY. 

On the proud mausoleum^ where friendship, 
companionship, love, had deposited their holy 
relics, it was constantly written, ^Her hus- 
band inconsolable ; ' ' His disconsolate wife ; ' 
^A brother, left alone and unhappy/ has 
raised this monument ; but seldom, so seldom 
that scarcely ever did the mournful record 
close with a word of hope ; scarcely at all was 
it to be read amidst the marble silence of that 
world of the dead that there is a life beyond ; 
and that surviving friends hope for a blessed 
meeting again where death comes no more." 
0. Dewey. 

How fitful and uncertain are the hopes in- 
spired by that scepticism which admits the 
possibility of life beyond the grave, but spurns 
divine revelation and ignores salvation by 
Jesus Christ. Its adherents believe "that hap- 
piness is the only good; reason the only torch ; 
justice the only worship; humanity the only 
religion; and love the only priest," and thus 
they deny to God a place in his own universe. 
But when death comes to their immediate 
circle and lays its hand on those whom they 
love, how earnestly they cry for help ! how 
they grope in the dark for those very hopes 



LIGHT IN THE VALLEY. 89 

which Christ has made as bright as the sun 
and as firm as the pillars of eternity. One 
of them has recently said in beautiful and 
touching language, which betokens a hunger 
of soul which nothing but Christ can satisfy : 
" Life is a narrow vale between the cold and 
barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in 
vain to look beyond the heights. We cry 
aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our 
wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the 
unreplying dead there comes no word ; but in 
the night of death Hope sees a star, and, 
listening, Love can hear the rustling of .a 
wing." — jR. IngersolL Why listen for a voice 
from the unreplying dead when God has 
spoken ? Why search the tomb by the light 
of the torch of human reason when light 
which is the life of men has come to us from 
the eternal world ? Why prefer a flickering 
taper and ignore the sun ? The taper s light 
will be extinguished by the first breeze created 
by the death-angel's wing, for we stand 
amazed, confounded, overwhelmed, in the 
presence of death, if we stand not on the rock 
of God's eternal truth. Christianity comes to 
us in our sin and darkness with all the assur- 



90 LIGHT IN THE VALLEY. 

ance of positive knowledge, with all the ten- 
derness of pity, with all the help of omnipo- 
tence, and with all the authority of God. It 
smooths our pathway to the grave, it lights 
up the dark valley with its beams of truth, 
and rescues humanity from the dominion of 
death. 

Hope does indeed behold a star whose light 
shall never fade, which knows no setting; 
and love and faith hear the rustling of the 
angel's wing sent to guide the departing soul 
to realms of light. Death comes to the good 
as a friend to open the gate that leads to the 
spirit land. Then welcome death, "Great 
hour of answer to life's prayer, that breaks 
asunder the bond of life's mystery ; hour of 
release from life's burden, and of reunion 
with the loved and lost! What mighty 
hopes hasten to their fulfilment in thee! 
death ! the Christian's death ! What art 
thou but the gate of life, the portal of 
heaven, the threshold of eternity." — O. 
Deicey. 

Christ has conquered death, it has lost its 
power, its sting is extracted, its venom gone. 
It is chained as a captive to the conqueror's 



LIGHT IN THE VALLEY. 91 

chariot wheels, and only awaits the resurrec- 
tion morning to receive the execution of the 
sentence, " death, I will be thy plagues ! 
grave, I will be thy destruction." 



1 



CHAPTER V. 

THE HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION. 

The blessed in the new covenant 
Shall rise up quickened, each from his grave, 
Wearing again the garments of the flesh, 
Ministers and messengers of life eternal. — Blair, 

But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first 
fruits of them that slept. — Paul, 

THE doctrine of the resurrection comes to 
the human heart as assurance of help 
to a beleaguered garrison, inspiring and in- 
vigorating, a prophecy of deliverance from 
the bondage of death and the consummation of 
the dearest hopes that ever lived in the soul 
of man. 

If we give to death the attributes of per- 
sonality, he comes to our homes as a rude 
and heartless invader, despoiling them of 
every ornament of beauty, leaving nothing 
but a desert waste. He comes as a murderer, 
lays his icy hand on those wc love and they 

(93) 



94 THE HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION 

wither at his touch. He is cruel and treach- 
erous^ knows naught of pity or compassion, 
and is alike deaf to the appeals of infancy or 
age. But when every human being shall 
have been brought under his power, then 
Christ shall subvert and overthrow him. 
Death himself shall die, and his empire shall 
be annihilated by the resurrection of the dead. 
What joy shall burst forth from the lips of 
the redeemed, standing in holy triumph 
amidst the ghastly ruitis of death's dominion ! 
St. Faul by anticipation stands over the pros- 
trate foe and shouts to him and his empire, 
^^0 death, where is thy sting? grave, 
where is thy victory? Thanks be unto God 
who giveth us the victory through our Lord 
Jesus Christ." We may now have such faith 
in Christ as shall take the sting from death, 
and make the victory of the grave so barren 
as to lose its significance. While we are sub- 
ject to death and the grave for a time, we 
are assured of final victory. The sublime 
doctrine of the resurrection, as the consumma- 
tion of redemption, is left as a precious legacy 
by Christ to his church. 

There is in man's nature an undertone that 



THE HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION, 95 

cries out for a resurrection. The tenderness 
we feel for the dead is both reasonable and 
instinctive. It is significant of some inherent 
value in the body; that it may again be needed, 
that the cold and lifeless clay may again be 
animated by that spirit which once gave it 
those attributes of grace that called forth the 
inmost affections of our souls. With what a 
depth of love we look upon the forms of our 
dead! How we cling to them ! how beautiful 
they look to us ! how carefully we handle 
them, and with what intensity the soul yearns 
over them when they are laid in the grave ! 
How precious is the spot where they sleep ! 
We plant flowers upon the grave that they 
may bloom in all the summer months, and 
the hand that plucks them is accounted rude 
and thoughtless. We seem to say, Let the 
flowers bloom and beautify the spot where the 
dead are laid: it is sacred; let the rose blush 
and shed its fragrance; let the lily bloom in 
purity there, for that is- ^^ God's acre," the 
resting-place of the bodies of his saints tha' 
shall awake in the resurrection. This instinc- 
5ve feeling is not peculiar to those reared 
ler the influence of Christian truth; it is as 



96 THE HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION. 

old as the race. What costly preparation was 
made in ancient Egypt to embalm the bodies 
of the dead that they should remain for 
many generations. . What costly monuments 
were reared to mark their buria^places ! 
They have stood for thousands of years, and 
remain to-day almost unaffected by the ele- 
ments or the lapse of time. The Pyramids 
of Egypt, the ancient urns of many nations, 
the records of the generations who died before 
Christ brought life and immortality to light, 
the warm, throbbing instinct of every human 
heart, declare impressively the yearnings of 
the race for a restoration of their dead. 

We select for our burial-places the most 
pleasant spots, the green hill-side facing the 
sun, so that the first beams of light may fall 
upon the grave. We love to visit those places, 
and we experience a melancholy pleasure in 
communing with the dead, and are not satis- 
fied unless they have the most pleasant sur- 
roundings. Professor Caldwell, when dying, 
said to his sorrowing wife : " When you visit 
the spot where I lie, do not go in the shade 
of evening, or in the dark night ; these are no 
times to visit the grave of the Christian ; but 



THE HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION, 97 

go in the morning, in the bright sunshine, 
and when the birds are singing/' This is the 
language of Christian hope. The grave is 
only the resting-place of that which shall some 
day be aroused^ and the reclining body shall 
stand again according to the word of the 
Lord. In these things we see premonitions 
of a resurrection ; not proofs, but indications 
of what God designs to do for us. 

When we stand in the cemetery we are 
impressed with the thought that death reigns 
around us ; but there is life as well as death. 
There are analogies in nature that are indica- 
tive of a resurrection. Those flowers we see 
blooming are the products of the tiny seed 
cast into the soil a few months ago. The 
vital energy was in the seed, but the flower 
could not be produced but by the dissolution 
of the seed. In reference to his own death 
Christ said : " Except a corn of wheat fall into 
the ground and die it abideth alone ; but if it 
die it bringeth forth much fruit." And so the 
apostle Paul said : " That which thou sowest 
is not quickened except it die." The casting 
of the seed into the ground is not a waste ; it 

is not lost. " Human death is not annihila- 
7 



98 THE HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION. 

tion ; something of the old passes over from 
the former state, and stands out again in a 
new and more perfect state of maturity, and 
the two are identified in one individuality."^' 
Not that the body is as a seed that shall ger- 
minate and develop a new body by any pro- 
cess of nature ; the resurrection is not natural, 
but supernatural — a most stupendous miracle. 
It is no process of life under law, but a miracle 
produced by the fiat of Almighty God. 

Again : See that beautiful lily, as white as 
the driven snow, blooming upon the grave 
over which you bend in sorrow : from whence 
did it come ? You took an unsightly root or 
bulb and planted it in the dark soil, and there 
came up that beautiful flower. By what 
power was it produced? By the power of 
God, and no philosopher can describe the pro- 
cess. So in the fulness of time by God's own 
power shall there come from these graves, 
where rest the unnumbered dead, bodies that 
are indestructible in nature, and, in the Case 
of the righteous, bodies that are fashioned like 
unto the glorious body of the Son of God. 

Again: See that butterfly as it flits from 

*Hickok, "Humanity Immortal," p. 309. 



THE HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION. 99 

flower to flower, basking in the sunshine, en- 
joying its short life, the symbol of gayety and 
beauty. What singular changes have taken 
place in its different stages of life ! It was 
not always a butterfly. There have been 
transformations from a lower to a higher de- 
velopment. It was once a worm, crawling 
from leaf to leaf, but it made for itself a tomb- 
like encasement and passed into a chrysalis 
form and lay in torpor, but at the time the 
God of nature had ordained it emerged again 
into a higher form of life with augmented 
beauty, and plumed its wings for aerial flights 
and was prepared for new experiences which 
it could not have entered upon before, any 
more than man, before death and the resur- 
rection, can enter upon the glories of the 
celestial life. 

Our bodies may be as the seed, which shall 
be sown in the grave and so disappear for a 
while, but out of which we shall come forth, 
and God shall give us such bodies as may 
please him. We may enter upon our chrysalis 
state, but in God's own time we shall burst 
the bonds that bind us and come forth to ever- 
lasting life. But the flower and butterfly are 



100 THE HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION. 

emblems too faint to convey correct ideas of 
man in the resurrection state. We shall be 
like the pure and spotless bride, with new and 
brilliant attire, going forth to meet the bride- 
groom; like suns on the fourth day of creation 
starting out from dark nature's chaotic wilder- 
ness ; like the Son of God transfigured, with 
garments white as the light and shining like 
the sun. And these glories, in contrast with 
the dark background of death's disrupted em- 
pire, shall show the power, wisdom and good- 
ness of God. 

We do not present these analogies as proofs; 
they are but faint emblems. The resurrection 
is an epoch in the destiny of man ; a fact that 
awaits the race; that philosophy could not 
suggest or science discover, and for which 
nature has no absolute proof. But the anal- 
ogies named are intimations of God's inten- 
tions, and they show that the resurrection of 
the dead is in harmony with God's thoughts 
as revealed in the economy of nature. But 
these would never satisfy the demands of 
science or of faith; we must have something 
more clear and solid. They are corroborations 
only, and we look for a solid foundation in the 
revelation of God, 



THE HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION. 101 

The doctrine is stated in the Bible with 
great clearness and force. There are passages 
in the Old Testament in which it is found ; the 
prophets of old were not without hope of a 
complete victory over death and the grave. 
The passages from the Old Testament that 
bear upon this subject are the following : 
^^For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and 
that he shall stand at the latter day upon the 
earth ; 

^^And tlioiigli after my skin worms destroy 
this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God : 

'^ Whom I shall see for myself, and mine 
eyes shall behold, and not another; tliough 
my reins shall be consumed within me.'' — 
Job xix. 25, 26, 27. 

Modern criticism will scarcely allow this 
passage to hold the place it has held as a sup-, 
port of the doctrine of the resurrection. But 
there is something in it peculiarly forceful and 
touchingly beautiful. We are glad to know 
that all the best scholarship does- not inter- 
pret it as only applicable to a restoration of 
Job to temporal prosperity. We give the 
following translation and comment from a 
late learned divine, Dr. Taylor Lewis^ whose 



.102 THE HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION. 

scholarship in the ancient Hebrew was 
scarcely less than any man of his day : 

" i know that my redeemer lives, 
And o'er my dust, survivor shall he stand ; 
My skin all gone this [remnant] they may rend, 
But from my flesh shall I Eloah see ; 
Shall see him mine : 
Mine eyes shall see him— stranger now no more." 

" It is a question of subordinate importance 
whether in this passage of Job there is taught 
dogmatically the resurrection of the body, as 
held in our Christian articles, or whether 
there is only the thought of a spiritual be- 
holding of the divine presence, ' The power 
of an endless life/ a true resurrection power 
is in it; and we may therefore regard the 
spirit of the words as expressed in these 
lines of the unpretending hymnist, that may 
be found engraved in so many of our rural 
burying-grounds : 

" ' God my Kedeemer lives, 
And ever from the skies 
Looks down and watches o'er my dust, 
Till he shall -bid it rise. 

" * Though greedy worms devour my skin, 
And gnaw my wasting flesh ; 
Yet he will build my bones again, 
And clothe them all afresh. 



THE HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION, 103 

" * Then shall I see my Saviour's face, 
With strong immortal eyes, • 
And feast upon his unknown grace, 
With rapture and surprise.' " * 

The above passage from Job deserves spe- 
cial attention in this connection because it has 
been so long regarded as Job's declaration of 
faith in the resurrection of the dead. It is 
found in the burial service of nearly all 
churches, and has brought comfort to the 
hearts of millions. It is by no means neces- 
sary to the establishment of the doctrine, yet 
we cling to it as embodying the sublime idea 
of life beyond the grave, and of intense satis- 
faction and joy in beholding God in the world 
to come. 

There are passages in the Psalms of David 
that point to this great doctrine : " But God 
will redeem my soul from the power of the 
grave; for he shall receive me." Isaiah and 
Daniel are explicit, and distinctly foi*eshadow 
what was ^'brought to light" by the gospel: 
"Thy dead men shall live, together with my 
dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, 
ye that dwell in dust." "And many of them 

^ Isaac Watts, as quoted by Taylor Lewis. 



104 THE HOPE OF THE EESURRECTIOX, 

that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, 
some to everlasting life, and some to shame 
and everlasting contempt. And they that be 
wise shall shine as the brisrhtness of the fir- 

o 

mament : and they that turn many to right- 
eousness, as the stars forever and ever/' 

The great truths that pertain to the destiny 
of man dawned slowly upon the human 
mind. God did not choose to reveal clearly 
all the truth to the prophets ; the new dispen- 
sation was the outgrowth and consumma- 
tion of the old; and as prophecy drew nearer 
to the times of the Messiah, it became more 
definite and clear. The resurrection was no 
exception to this rule; it was but dimly seen. 
But in the teachings of Christ and his apos- 
tles, the mists flee away ; and that which was 
but vaguely understood by the prophets, 
shines forth in splendor in the New Testa- 
ment. When Christ came he found the Jew- 
ish Church in possession of the doctrine, ex- 
cepting the sect of the Sadducees; but he 
added emphasis and clearness to it : * 

"Marvel not at this: for the hour is com- 
ing, in the which all that are in the graves 
shall hear his voice, and shall come forth ; 



THE HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION. 105 

they that have done good^ unto the resurrec- 
tion of life ; and they that have done evil, 
unto the resurrection of damnation^ 

^^And this is the Father s will which hath 
sent me, that of all which he hath given me 
I should lose nothing, but should raise it up 
again at the last day." 

The following passages from the Epistles 
of St. Paul also teach the same truth: 

" But if the Spirit of him that raised up 
Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that 
raised up Christ from the dead shall also 
quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that 
dwelleth in you. For we know that the 
whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain 
together until now. And not only they^ but 
oursen;3S also, which have the first fruits of 
the Spirit; even we ourselves groan within 
ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to loity the 
redemption of our body." 

" For our conversation is in heaven ; from 
whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord 
Jesus Christ : who shall change our vile body, 
that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious 
body, according to the working whereby he is 
able even to subdue all thin2:s unto himself." 



106 THE HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION. 

" But I would not have you to be ignorant, 
brethren, concerning them which are asleep, 
that ye sorrow not, even as others which have 
no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died 
and rose again, even so them also which sleep 
in Jesus will God bring with him. For this 
we say unto you by the word of the Lord, 
that we which are alive and remain unto the 
coming of the Lord shall not prevent them 
which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall 
descend from heaven with a shout, with the 
voice of the archangel, and with the trump 
of God : and the dead in Christ shall rise 
first : Then we which are alive and remain 
shall be caiight up together with them in the 
clouds, to meet the Lord in the air : and so 
shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore 
comfort one another with these words." 

The whole of 1 Cor. xv. chapter is devoted 
to the doctrine of the resurrection, and is a 
declaration of Paul's faith in it and the reasons 
for his faith, and a powerful argument is pre- 
sented, comparing it with events of common 
occurrence in the natural world. To this 
chapter the reader is referred. 

The principal facts which the above pas- 
sages show conclusively are these : 



THE HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION. 107 

First. The raising of the dead is ascribed 
to €hrist, and is represented as the last work 
to be undertaken by him for the salvation of 
men. 

Second. All the dead will be raised without 
respect to age, rank, or character in this 
world. 

Third. This event is not to take place be- 
fore the end of the world, but at the day of 
judgment. 

The resurrection of Christ must be the 
strongest argument that can be presented for 
the resurrection of mankind. It is in itself a 
demonstration of the possibility of a resur- 
rection. We must think of this doctrine in 
the light that shines from the open and empty 
grave of Christ, whence he arose the third 
day and showed that he was the Son of God 
with power, demonstrating his divinity and 
the immortality of humanity, and giving to 
the world a pledge and proof of the resurrec- 
tion of the saints. 

By his resurrection, Christ established his 
claim to divinity, showing that he possessed 
life in himself; that he had power to lay down 
bis life and power to take it again; and on the 



. 108 THE HOPE OF THE RESGERECTION-. 

fact of Christ's resurrection depends our hope 
•of salvation here and eternal life hereafter. 
^•And if Christ be not risen, your faith is vain; 
ye are yet in your sins." " The dogma of the 
resurrection is the proof of all other dogmas, 
the foundation of our Christian life and hope/ 
the soul of the entire apostolic preaching, the 
corner-stone on which the Christian church is 
built."— Pro/. GhristUeh. 

The fact of the resurrection of Christ, so 
important to the establishment of the Chris- 
tian faith, has been most wonderfully guarded, 
and is proved by the most indubitable evi- 
dence, so that to accept it is most reasonable; 
to deny it and accept any other hypothesis is 
the most unreasonable credulity. 

He was seen of Mary en the morning of 
the resurrection ; next he was seen by the two 
disciples as they journeyed toward Emmaus ; 
then of the eleven as they sat at meat in Jeru- 
salem ; again at the sea of Galilee ; and to pre- 
elude the idea that it was a mere vision, he 
said, " Behold my hands and my feet, that it 
is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit 
hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." 
The testimony of Paul is most unequivocal -• 



THE HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION, 109 

^^For I delivered unto you first of all that 
which I also received, how that Christ died 
for our sins according to the Scriptures; and 
that he was seen of Cephas, then of the 
twelve; after that he was seen of above five 
hundred brethren at once ; of whom the 
greater part remain unto this present, but 
some are fallen asleep. After that he was 
seen of James; then of all the apostles. And 
last of all he was seen of me also, as of one 
born out of due time." 

Such testimony as this would establish any 
fact in any age. " Why should it be thought 
a thing incredible with you, that God should 
raise the dead ? " The history of redemption 
gives us a sublime fact on the most incontro- 
vertible evidence of an actual and literal res- 
urrection, as the consummation of the grand 
redemptive work of the Son of God, and this 
fact is pointed to as the assurance of the res- 
urrection of all men. " But now is Christ 
risen from the dead, and become the first- 
fruits of them that slept. For since by man 
came death, by man came also the resurrection 
of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so 
in Christ shall all be made alive." 



110 THE HOPE OF THE RESUERECTION: 

"What a glorious truth is here asserted! 
Not only is Christ arisen, but he is the first- 
fruits of .them that have slept; the first 
sheaf gathered from the great harvest field; 
the first trophy won from death's dominions ; 
the beginning of a long line of those destined 
to arise out of death's sleep to life eternal. 
The great head of humanity leads the way 
up from the tomb, and opens the gate for all 
our race. ^^As the first sheaf gathered and 
presented, under the Mosaic law, as a thank- 
ofiering to God, was the pledge and assurance 
of the ingathering of the whole harvest, so 
the resurrection of Christ is a pledge and 
proof of the resurrection of his people." 
Hodg^. The doctrine of the resurrection has 
been received by the church of God ever since 
the days of the prophets, but more especially 
since Christ taught and demonstrated it. So 
deeply rooted was this in the minds of the 
Apostles that they made it most prominent in 
their teachings, as may be seen in the Epistles. 
It formed a very essential part of their preach- 
ing, and especially of those discourses by which 
the Holy Ghost operated upon the hearts of 
the people. It was peculiarly offensive to the 



THE HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION. Ill 

enemies of Christianity^ and its presentation 
excited their highest indignation. The Sad- 
ducees were objectors to the doctrine ; to the 
Pharisees, though believers in the doctrine, 
the resurrection of Christ was an offence, be- 
cause it w^as their condemnation. The his- 
torian of the apostles' labors says : 

^'And as they spake unto the people, the 
priests, and the captain of the temple, and 
the Sadducees, came upon them, being grieved 
that they taught the people, and preached 
through Jesus the resurrection from the dead. 
And they laid hands on them, and put them 
in hold unto the next day : for it was now 
eventide. Howbeit many of them which 
heard the word believed ; and the number of 
the men was about five thousand." 

The Holy Ghost bore witness to the truth, 
and made it quick and powerful. Man is 
deeply wrought upon when brought in con- 
tact with the supernatural. The resurrection 
of the dead brings him face to face with his 
Maker, and introduces him to the solemnities 
of the judgment day. When the missionary 
Moffat visited an African chief, he preached 
to him and his headmen the resurrection pf 



112 THE HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION, 

the dead. " What ! " cried the chief, start 
ing with surprise ; " what are these words 
nbout the dead ? The dead — the dead arise?" 
" Yes/' said the raissionaryj " all the dead 
shall rise." " Will my father rise ? will all the 
dead slain in battle rise ? " "Yes, and come 
to judgment." "Hark!" shouted the chief, 
turning to his warriors, "ye wise men, did 
your ears ever hear such news ? " " Never," 
was the reply. Then turning to the mis- 
sionary the chief said, "I do not wish to hea^ 
about the dead rising again ; the dead cannot 
rise ; the dead shall not rise." " Tell me," 
«aid the missionary, "why I may not speak 
of the resurrection ? " Lifting his arm, which 
had been strong in battle, as if grasping a 
spear, the chief said, " I have slain my thou- 
sands; and shall they rise?" As the truth 
flashed across the mind of this savage, it over- 
whelmed him. It is indeed a solemn thought 
that the injurer and injured shall stand face 
to face in the resurrection and judgment. 

It is no more a doctrine of warning to the 
unrighteous than of comfort and edification to 
the people of God. Of the apostles it is writ- 
ten, "And with great power gave the apostles 



THE HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION. 113 

witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus ; 
and great grace was upon them all." Paul 
found it an appropriate subject to present to 
the philosophers at Athens. "He preached 
unto them Jesus and the resurrection." It 
is a matter of sincere regret that it forms so 
small a part of modern pulpit discourse. The 
central truth is lost sight of in its subordinate 
branches, and its nature and mode occupy so 
large a share of the thought given it, that its 
presentation suggests doubt when it should 
strengthen faith. If we heartily accept the 
fact, though we cannot understand it in all 
its relations, we shall find it one of the sub- 
limest truths and most powerful doctrines to 
influence the hearts of men. 

There are diiferences of opinion as to its 
nature, mode and time. Many reject the doc- 
trine of a literal resurrection of the body laid 
in the grave, because of the supposed difficul- 
ties by which it is surrounded. Of these 
Bishop Foster, of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, says: "They are many and great, but 
such as infinite power and wisdom could over- 
come. They are not, therefore, absolutely 
insurmountable; and as the resurrection is 



114 THE HOPE OF THE EESURRECTIOm 

God's work^ the magnitude of the difRculties 
weighs nothing." The infinite power and 
wisdom of God must be a sufficient answer to 
all objections arising from the difficulty of the 
work proposed. Christ's reply to such ob- 
jectors was : " Ye do err, not knowing the 
scriptures nor the power of God." But what- 
ever the differences in opinion as to the nature 
of the resurrection body^ there is general 
agreement as to the great fact, and this is the 
object of our hope. 

The question, '- With what body do they 
come?" has never been answered so as to 
satisfy the sceptical or the curious. The 
spirit of inspiration has left some things for 
the profound researches of men and for the 
exercise of faith ; absolute knowledge of that 
which God has not revealed cannot be ob- 
tained. ^^ This much, however, is certain: 
First. The body of the resurrection will be as 
strictly identical with the body of death as 
the body of death is with the body of birth. 
Second. Each soul w^ill have an indubitable 
intuitive consciousness that its new body is 
identical with the old. Third. Each friend 
shall recognize the individual characteristics 



THE HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION, lie> 

of the soul in the perfectly transparent expres- 
sion of the new body." — A, A, Hodge, 

As to the important change that takes place 
in the body God has not left us in doubt. It 
wil'l be changed from corruption to incorrup- 
tion ; from dishonor to glory ; from weakness 
to power ; from a natural body, that is adapted 
to the natural world in which we live, to a 
spiritual body adapted to the spiritual world 
in which we shall then live. " Raised in in- 
corruption." Not subject to disease or natural 
decay. In the resurrection life we shall never 
say, "I am sick." ^^And God shall wipe 
away all tears from their eyes ; and there shall 
be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, 
neither shall there be any more pain ; for the 
former things are passed away." 

" Raised in glory." What a contrast be- 
tween the body under the dominion of death, 
and the body which has entered the resurrec- 
tion state by the power of Christ, " who shall 
change our vile body, that it may be fashioned 
like unto his glorious body, according to the 
working whereby he is able to subdue all 
things unto himself." The body that has 
borne a part in the suffering and humiliation 



116 THE HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION. 

induced by sin shall also bear a part in the 
redemption, and be a participant in the glorj 
of him who has redeemed and transformed it. 
The glorified body of our Lord is the pattern 
of the glorified bodies of his saints. 

" Raised in power." No more subject to 
fatigue by labor, decay by age, wasting by 
disease or dissolution by death. The power 
of the resurrection body shall be commensu- 
rate with the powers of the mind, and shall 
execute all the purposes and the volitions of 
the spirit with the utmost ease and readi- 
ness. 

" Raised a spiritual body." An organiza- 
tion suited to the nature and capacities of the 
spirit, which, being lifted above all dependence 
upon the outward world, will forever display 
itself in incorruption, glory and power. There 
is in this a promise and a prophecy for man, 
as it opens before us a glorious field of activity 
and enjoyment. 

In the spiritual birth which the Christian 
experiences he receives a new impulse toward 
purity and life. " He that believeth on me 
hath everlasting life." ^^And this is the will 
of kim that sent me, that every one which 



THE HOPE OF THE BESUREECTION. 117 

seeth the Son^ and belie veth on him, may 
have everlasting life : and I will raise him up 
at the last day." This life inspired in the 
soul by the spirit of God can only find a field 
for full development and activity in the world 
beyond the grave. Our resurrection will 
therefore be to a higher and nobler life. By the 
power of Almighty God we shall be lifted to 
a higher plane. Our redemption will be com- 
pleted, and beyond that there will be a de- 
velopment, an unfolding of those sublime 
mental and moral powers that reveal them- 
selves here in bonds and fetters. As the con- 
sciousness of power to fly makes th^ bird 
beat itself against the bars of its cage, so do 
" we ourselves groan within ourselves, wait- 
ing for our adoption, to wity the redemption 
of our body." 

There is much comfort in this doctrine for 
the believer. It furnishes the mind some- 
thing tangible in regard to our departed loved 
ones. They are not lost ; even the body is 
not annihilated. The child w^hich we have 
clasped to our bosom with such tenderness 
and affection, we shall again love as devotedly 
and with greater intensity than we did on 



118 THE HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION. 

earth. The promises and attributes of God 
are pledged to this consummation of our 
hopes. Modern science and philosophy, so 
for as they are true and reliable^ only reveal 
to us the wonderful wisdom and infinite power 
of God. They show the wonder and sublim- 
ity of his works ; the infinite depths of his 
thoughts as embodied in the universe of mind 
and matter; and these do not militate against 
the truth of his promises^ or the certainty 
of their fulfihiient^ but they strengthen our 
f[iith and confirm our hope ; and they show 
that what God has promised to do for us at 
the last day in raising us from the dust of 
the grave is no greater than what he has done 
in the past or is doing at the present. The 
greatness of the miracle weighs nothing with 
a God of infinite power. 

Then let the soul commune with its dead; 
God shall not mock the instincts of our nature 
or the hopes inspired by his Spirit. They 
shall rise again ! We must look beyond the 
graves of our own dead; there is another in 
which the race has an interest, the grave in 
the Garden of Joseph of Arimathea. Ours are 
filled with dust sacred to us: that one is 



THE HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION, 119 

empty. The body of the Son of God, once 
as dead as the body we laid in the grave, has 
been reanimated ; the burial garments have 
dropped from that glorious form; he could not 
be holden of death, and we no longer look for 
the living among the dead. Light and life 
shine forth from that empty grave and throws 
its radiance athwart all other graves ! Listen ! 
alid we may hear as from the very lips of the 
Redeemer, as the angel rolls away the stone : 
"I am the resurrection and the life: he that 
believeth in me, though he were dead yet 
shall he live ; and whosoever liveth and be- 
lieveth in me shall never die.'' 

In times of distress, or of great need, when 
earthly hopes vanish and the props on which 
we lean are cut from beneath us, the strongest 
and the weakest minds are alike dependent 
and would gladly rest with childlike faith in 
the truth revealed in the gospel of Christ. In 
such an hour we all crave assurances of im- 
mortality and some truth congenial with the 
passing scene, covering the same ground, 
woven of the same material. We look for 
actual instances of resurrection in a body, like 
our own — death visibly "swallowed up of life." 



120 THE HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION. 

Such an instance we have in the resurrection 
of Christ. His resurrection makes both worlds 
one ; it reveals the life of this world and the 
next as one life, the future only the com- 
pletion of the present. How sublime is 
our destiny ! What glory awaits the be- 
liever ! 

In the resurrection morning the body as 
well as the soul shall be brought under the 
full power of redemption. The soul stamped 
with the moral likeness of God and in har- 
mony with the pure intelligences of the uni- 
verse ; the body changed and fashioned like 
unto Christ's glorious body; these two, re- 
united and retaining essential identity, shall 
complete man's perfect salvation from the 
dominion of sin, and he shall enter the con- 
summation of his bliss. 

Who shall describe the satisfaction of the 
soul in that hour ! The world, sin, death and 
hell all vanquished. " I shall be satisfied 
when I awake in thy likeness." It will be 
the peace of the child in its mother's bosom ; 
the rest of the mariner when the storms are 
over; the joy of the conqueror crowned by 
his sovereign; the glory of the saint in the 



i 



THE HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION. 121 

smile of his Lord. Resurrection ! Wonderful 
sjcene ! ! Glorious morning ! ! ! Roll on^ ye 
cycles of time, and hasten the coming of the 
Lord! 

"IF A MAN DIE, SHALL HE LIVE AGAIN ?^* 

BY MARY SPARKES WHEELER. 

I stood beside the tomb, 

Of buried love to weep ; 
Within my soul a gloom, 

Impenetrably deep. 
My heart was buried with my dead, 
And bitter were the tears I shed. 

'^Tell me, if a man die, 

O, shall he live again ? " 
I asked, but no reply 

Came to my heart or brain. 
"Speak ! for this hope alone I crave," 
But all was " silent as the grave." 

To Nature then I turned, 

" 0, tell me, I implore ! 
Have we no lesson learned 

From out thy bounteous store ? 
Do not the butterfly and flower 
Proclaim a resurrection power ? " 

" Nay, mourner, not in me 

Doth this rare wisdom dwell. 
For of the mystery 

Nor leaves, nor flowers can tell ; 
These give the faintest simile, 
But prove not jmmortalit^." • 



122 THE HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION. 

To Science next I spoke : 
" Say, shall the dead arise? " 

A voice the silence broke : 

I raised my tear-dimmed eyes; 

But Science said, " 'Tis not in me 

To fathom immortality." 

With sages wise I wrought 
Earth's secrets to unlock ; 

Amid the depths I sought 
Replies in ancient rock: 

The hieroglyphics graven there 

Brought no relief to my despair. 

Then upward to the sky, 

Through realms of endless space, 

From sun to sun, my eye 
Sought a reply to trace. 

Alas ! no answer came to me 

From out the vast infinity. 

Vain search for hope, or cheer, 
O Christ, away from thee ! 

" Come, troubled soul, draw near, 
And thou shalt find in me 

The resurrection and the life. 

Mourner believe, and cease thy strife. 



CHAPTER VL 

IMMORTALITY THE HOPE OF THE FATHERS. 

'Tis immortality deciphers man, 
And opens all the mysteries of his make. 
Without it, half his instincts are a riddle; 
Without it, all his virtues are a dream. — Young. 

But those who are found to have lived an eminently holy life, 
these are they who, being freed and set at large from these re- 
gions in the earth, as from a prison, arrive at the pure abode 
above, .... since our soul is certainly immortal. — Socrates. 

Thou wilt show me the path of life ; in thy presence is fulnese 
of joy ; at thy right hand there are pleasures forever more. — 
David. 

TN all the works of God we find conclusive 
-^ evidences of a gradual development. 
The material universe in its magnificent per- 
fection was not spoken into being in a mo- 
ment, in the state in which we now see it. 
" In the beginning God created the heavens 
and the earth. And the earth was without 
form, and void; and darkness was upon the 

(123) 



124 IMMORTALITY THE HOPE OF THE FATHERS. 

face of the deep/* The Spirit of God hovered 
over the face of the waters, and his creative 
and formative energies were manifested, and 
the work of creation went forward in an as- 
cending line : a series of generations whose 
nighest point was reached in man. It is pos- 
sible for us to read the history of creation in 
its great outlines in the mountains and 
valleys, the rocks and ravines ; and trace the 
varied epochs and transitions by which the 
earth reached its present state, and by which 
it was made a suitable home for the human 
race. We find in the earlier geologic history 
evidences of terrestrial beings in constant 
succession and progression from the lower to 
the higher orders. 

We may take this as indicative of the gen- 
eral method of God's procedure in creation 
and revelation. A gradual unfolding, a de- 
velopment, a building up from the foundation, 
a dispersion of the darkness by the diffusion 
of light. It has been thus with the revela- 
tions of God's nature and the destiny of man. 
It is now impossible to know how much light 
and knowledge man possessed in his primeval 
s^tate, but we have abundant evidence of his 



IMMORTALITY THE HOPE OF THE FATHERS, 125 

retrogression from the path of purity and his 
consequent fall, by which he lost the true 
knowledge of God and his own future. From 
this state of mental darkness and moral deg- 
radation, it pleased God to call him and give 
him a revelation of light and truth. But this 
light was not given like the sudden bursting 
forth of the noon-day sun upon the darkness 
of midnight, but was rather conformed to 
God's method in creation, and to analogies in 
nature. From the formless void to the sym- 
metry and beauty of the perfect world by 
successive steps ; from the dark night to the 
perfect day by gradations of light: first the 
morning twilight, the gradual lifting of the 
clouds and mist, the first rays darting upward 
from the horizon, then the sun's full disk 
shining in beauty and splendor. 

God's method of working has not been by 
a succession of surprises; but every revela- 
tion has been preceded by a preparatory 
stage, a foreshadowing of what was to come. 
The doctrine of immortality has reached its 
present form in the same way. We cannot 
point to the time when it was in any sense 
new, or to any race among whom it w as un* 



126 IMMORTALITY THE HOPE OF THE FATHERS. 

known. All nations have left, in their phi- 
losophy, poetry, and institutions some traces 
of it. Some travellers have reported the dis- 
covery of tribes in Africa, and other parts of 
the earth, without it; but other travellers, on 
a closer investigation, have shown that they 
were in error. A few are found in all Chris- 
tian countries who deny all religious truth, 
and therefore ignore their own immortality; 
but in almost all instances there is underlying 
the professed scepticism a latent but strong 
conviction of accountability and immortality. 
When men reach the point of a denial of the 
existence of God and the immortality of the 
soul, they have rendered themselves unnatural 
by passion or depravity. If it were possible 
for us to divest our minds of all thoughts and 
influences derived from the Bible, we would 
still find in man's own soul evidences of im- 
mortality, longings for a future life ; and 
without these humanity could not be perfect. 
If man should be divested of all thoughts, 
motives, inspirations, and emotions that grow 
out of the doctrine of immortality, the most 
vital part of manhood would be taken away; 
the germ^ the kernel of life w^ould be gone, 



IMMORTALITY THE HOPE OF THE FATHERS. 127 

and nothing would remain but the dry and 
worthless husk. 

Among the least civilized of our race, when 
the grossness and rubbish of sensuality is 
cleared away, underneath, in the texture of 
the soul itself, we find those instincts and de- 
sires that point directly to immortality. 
There is an inherent desire to live, a longing 
for immortality; and the dread of physical 
death is abated by the hope of a life beyond 
the grave. The diviner instincts of the soul 
show themselves in these yearnings. They 
are the outgoings of the nature that God has 
planted within us, and are indicative of what 
we shall be when the present constitution of 
things is overthrown. As the eye points to 
the light, and the lungs to the air; as the 
wings of the bird and the fins of the fish 
point to their correspondencies in air and 
water; and as all other natural wants point 
to their correlatives in nature, so do these 
longings of the soul for continued existence 
point to an immortal life. 

^^It must be so, Plato, thou rcnsonest well ! 
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, 
This longing after immortality ? 
Or whence this secret dread and inward horror 



12S IMMORTALITY THE HOPE OF THE FATHERS. 

Of falling into naught ? Why shrinks the soul 
Back on herself, and startles at destruction ? 
*Tis the divinity that stirs within us ; 
'Tis heaven itself that points out a hereafter, 
And intimates eternity to man." 

Some among the ancient philosophers en- 
tertained this hope, and reasoned for it inde- 
pendent of the Jewish scriptures. We may 
turn to Socrates, who may be regarded as the 
product of the highest heathen civilization, 
and in him we find expressions of the strong- 
est hope of immortality. He was born about 
five hundred years before Christ and could 
have borrowed nothing from the gospel, 
though it is possible he may have had some 
knowledge of the Jewish prophets. In speak- 
ing of the future life he was eloquent and 
sublime ; and but for the lack of positiveness, 
and the authority that pervades the scrip- 
tures, we would think him inspired of God. 
His conceptions were noble and elevated. In 
the spirit world he w^ould hold converse with 
the wise and good, and with the great dead 
of his own historic time. In his defence be- 
fore his judges, w4ao condemned him to death, 
he argued that death was no great calamity 
but rather a blessing. He said : " If death 



IMMORTALITY THE HOPE OF THE FATHERS, 129 

be a removal from hence to another place, 
and what is said be true, that all the dead 
are there, what greater blessing can there be, 
my judges? At what price would you not 
estimate a conference with Orpheus and 
MusoBus, Hesiod and Homer? I, indeed, 
should be willing to die often if this be true. 
For to me the sojourn there would be admir- 
able, when I should meet with Palamedes 
and Ajax, son of Telamon, and any other of 
the ancients who have died by an unjust sen- 
tence. At what price, my judges, would not 
any one estimate the opportunity of question- 
ing him who led that mighty army against 
Troy ; or Ulysses* Sisyphus, or ten thousand 
others, whom one might mention, both men 
and women? With whom to converse and 
associate and to question them would be an in- 
conceivable happiness. Surely for that the 
judges there do not condemn to death; for in 
other respects those who live there are more 
happy than those who live here, and are 
henceforth immortal, if at least what is said 
be true." * 

Plato, the disciple of Socrates, was the 

* Cleaveland's Cla. Lit., p. 121. 



130 IMMORTALITY THE HOPE OF THE FATHERS^ 

first, SO far as we know, who sought by argu- 
ment to establish tlie doctrine of immortality. 
'^He distinguished what is corporeal from the 
soul, which he considered to be an eternal 
self-acting agency; and to him we owe the 
first formal development of the doctrine of its 
spirituality and the first attempt towards de- 
monstrating its immortality." * 

Cicero, who lived a hundred years before 
Christ, wrote most eloquently of the immor- 
tality of the soul. " I am well convinced, 
then, that my dear departed friends are so far 
from having ceased to live, that the state 
they now enjoy can alone with propriety be 
called life. This opinion 1 am induced to 
embrace, not only as agreeable to the best 
deductions of reason, but in just deference, 
also, to the authority of the noblest and most 
distinguished philosophers. I consider this 
world as a place which nature never designed 
for my permanent abode ; and I look upon my 
departure out of it, not as being driven from 
my habitation, but as leaving my inn."f 

A belief in the immortality of the soul and 
a future state has existed from the earliest 

* Cleaveland's Cla. Lit., p. 189. f Ibid., p. 389, 391. 



IMMORTALITY THE HOPE OF THE FATHERS, 131 

times and spread generally among the nations. 
It is not probable that the ideas originated in 
the reasoning of men or from merely human 
^visdom, but they were probably received by 
tradition from former generations, running 
back in an unbroken line to men who held 
intercourse with God, and this doctrine formed 
a part of the primitive religion imparted by 
the Creator to our first parents in Eden. But 
after the fall the degeneracy of men was so 
great, the corruption of manners and morals 
so deep, that the tendency was to deface these 
primitive doctrines and thrust men out into 
the utter darkness of atheism or idolatry. 

In tracing this hope, we find that the more 
true the mind is to itself and to God the more 
intensely it clings to existence. We feel con- 
scious that unless there is another life, the 
present life is a failure, a greater failure than 
can be found in any other department of God's 
work with which we are acquainted. The 
present with man is not much compared with 
the fature. It is but a passing moment, a 
shadow, a dream ; the future is eternity. 
Hope is the soul's great sheet-anclior, and 
when this is entirely wanting the sooner the 



132 IMMORTALITY THE HOPE OF THE FATHERS 

frail bark is engulfed beneath the waves, the 
better. And this hope must not be in regard 
to some brighter phase of the present life, 
but must be cast within the veil, whither 
Christ has for us entered. ^^If in this life 
only we have hope in Christ, we are of all 
men most miserable." 

God has left his own impress of immortality 
upon man's nature ; his longings are premoni- 
tory ; and man must be immortal or God is 
not true to himself or to his creature. The 
creation of a human soul, the filling of this 
world with human beings, is one of the most 
stupendous acts of God. ^^It was a little 
thing when he ventured to beautify the earth 
with animals and birds and beasts and living 
things that can feel sensation. But, oh, when 
he took a human soul out of his soul, when 
he ventured to make a being like himself, that 
could think until agony, that could feel until 
bursting of grief or of rapture, and set it 
going; when he set it up with its awful love 
and sympathies ; when he turned human souls 
into this world to form alliances, to enter into 
bonds of affection, to make households and 
families ; when he made fathers^ mothers and 



IMMORTALITY THE HOPE OF THE FATHERS. 133 

children^ husbands and wives and young 
hearts with boundless affection ; when he 
created a world of souls that were like him- 
self^ he made the awfulest venture of all his 
creation. And I say that the only vindica- 
tion of the Eternal Throne that ever can be 
made by angels or men, is that these souls, 
with their wealth of power, shall live with 
him forever, if they are true and faithful to 
the trust committed to them." * 

These are the arguments which reason, 
based upon the inherent yearnings of the 
soul, would present, but we must go to the 
pure word of God for authoritative teaching. 

The Bible presents this doctrine, in its gen- 
eral scope and sublime promises, in its terrible 
threatenings and positive declarations, and in 
its ten thousand expressions of hope, joy, 
peace and satisfaction, that are all utterly 
meaningless, vapid and void if the soul be not 
immortal. It is on this granite foundation 
that the doctrine rests. Nature and reason 
combined would not be sufficient to set the 
mind at ease if it were not found in the Bible. 
But truth taught by nature and revelation, 

* Bishop Foster, Chatauqua Lectures. 



134 IMMORTALITY THE HOPE OF THE FATHERS, 

cemented bj the highest reason, rests upon a 
foundation against which the gates of hell 
shall not prevail. 

The idea prevails to some extent that the 
Old Testament does not in any conclusive 
sense teach the immortalitv of the soul. But 
we have shown that the Greek and Roman 
philosophers knew^ something of it; and is it 
not reasonable to suppose that the Hebrew 
prophets would know more, and, while they 
argued less, w^ould be more authoritative 
in their declarations? We believe that the 
thought and spirit of immortality pervades 
the whole Bible. It is interwoven with every 
fibre. It sings in its poetry and breathes in 
its prayers. It lies at the foundation of every 
promise and prophecy. It is seen in its lamen- 
tations and its triumphal songs ; in its aspira- 
tions, joys and hopes. It is the standpoint 
from which alone it can be understood or ap- 
preciated; the only medium through which its 
sublime truths, conveyed in song, in prayer 
and prophecy, can be interpreted. It is not 
tauofht in the Old Testament with the same 
\ilness of statement or conclusiveness with 
vhich it is taught in the New Testament; but 



IMMORTALITY THE HOPE OF THE FATHERS, 135 

it lies at the foundation ; it is the substratum 
upon which all other truth rests. It is like 
the granite rocks in the constitution of the 
material Avorld : it lies too deep to be seen by 
superficial observers, but here and there it 
breaks through the overlying crust and shows 
itself in its greatness and strength. In the 
Old Testament the flower of immortality is in 
the bud^ but sufficiently opened for us to judge 
of its nature, while in the New Testament it 
is expanded fully and sends forth its fragrance 
for the healing of the nations. The promises, 
prophecies, types, figures and allusions of the 
Old Testament were not fully understood 
until the Gospel was promulgated, and many 
of them were explained by the events that 
fulfilled them. But the belief of the patriarchs 
in the promise of a Redeemer, and their ex- 
pectation of a future life, appear evident from 
their history and by the testimony to their 
faith given by Christ and his apostles. In the 
New Testament immortality shines forth for 
all who have an eye to see or an ear to hear. 
In the Old Testament, " There is thrown over 
it a veil of holy reserve, making it all the 
more impressive when the truth is seen 



136 niMORTALTTY THE HOPE OF THE FATHERS 

through it." It is for the devout and believ- 
ing. " The secret of the Lord is with them 
that fear him, and to them will he make 
known his covenant." So has it been in 
every age. The devout and believing soul, 
opening itself to the divine Spirit, is filled 
with divine light and hope, while the careless 
and unbelieving shut out the truth that w^ould 
purify, cheer and guide through the dark 
mazes of this mortal life. 

The covenant of God made with Abraham, 
Isaac and Jacob indicates the doctrine in 
question, and to men w^ho communed with 
God as they did, it must have been under- 
stood. Because this w^as not seen by the 
Sadducees we are not to conclude that the 
patriarchs did not see its full import. The 
darkness had accumulated and covered up the 
spiritual truth, and Christ in his controversy 
with the Sadducees uncovered it. He quoted 
the words, ^' I am the God of Abraham, and 
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." 
Then brushing away the rubbish of unbelief, 
the accumulation of centuries, he brought to 
view the whole truth in his striking comment, 
which must have been as startling as it was 



IMMORTALITY THE HOPE OF THE FATHERS. 137 

conclusive : ^' God is not the God of the dead 
but of the living/' Not / was^ but I am. 
" He does not thus solemnly declare himself 
the God of things non-existent." — T. Leivis. 
How little force there would be in such a 
covenant made with creatures of a day ! How 
little force in the declaration, " I am the God 
of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the 
God of Jacob ! " It would be a sort of solemn 
pomposity that would mock the subjects of it. 
If the covenant pertained only to the perpe- 
tuity of the Jews in this Hfe it Avould have 
meant no more than if God had said, " I am 
the God of horses, cattle and sheep," for these 
have had a linked succession until now and a 
perpetuity of equal spiritual value, if their 
destiny be the same. 

The Hebrew prophets did not give loose 
reins to fancy and speak of the spirit-world 
with the freedom of the old heathen philos- 
ophers and tnythologists, who rushed heed- 
lessly on where ^'angels fear to tread." Tliey 
only " spoke as they were moved by the Holy 
Ghost." But this adds weight and importance 
to their testimony, and gives their words an 
authority not possessed by any other. This 



138 UniORTALITY THE HOPE OF THE FATHERS. 

clothes the language which expresses their 
longings and desires with a deep and earnest 
meaning ; and it gives special significance to 
their actions^ in which they seemed to regard 
the world to come as of greater importance 
than the present life. The conduct of Moses 
in adopting the cause of the Israelites can 
only be understood on the supposition that he 
possessed a knowledge of immortality. " By 
faith Moses, when he was come to years, 
refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's 
daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction 
wdth the people of God than to enjoy the 
pleasures of sin for a season ; esteeming the 
reproach of Christ greater riches than the 
treasures in Egypt ; for he had respect unto 
the recompense of the reward." What was 
the reward ? Not an inheritance in Canaan ; 
he had no w^arrant from God to look for that, 
nor did he ever attain it ; but it was what 
his believing ancestors looked for, a future 
state of happiness in heaven. It was his 
knowledge of immortality and glory that 
stimulated him to heroic action for God and 
his chosen people. The New Testament re- 
veals to us the motives and considerations 



UIMORTALITY THE HOPE OF THE FATHERS. 139 

tliat had weight with the ancients, and shows 
clearly that their actions were based upon 
this doctrine. 

We have in early Bible times one striking 
event that bears upon this subject: the trans- 
lation of Enoch. This niust have meant 
something other than death, and must have 
conveyed the idea of continued existence in 
another sphere. The ideas of the primitive 
religion had not yet been obliterated from the 
mind, nor so degenerated as that the true 
could not be distinguished from the fabulous. 
That immortality was one of those ideas is 
shown by the faith of the early patriarchs 
and the universal faith of mankind extending 
backward to the remotest periods through 
every nationality and tribe. And the trans- 
lation might have been a revelation to the 
antediluvians of the mode by which man, if 
he had not sinned, miixht have attained to 
another and higher life. Enoch " stands as 
the citadel of immortality, of the victory over 
death, and of the ideal form of translation, in 
the midst of the death periods of the primitive 
fathers ; " * and is, in himself alone, a suffi- 

■^ Lange, Gen., p. 76. 



140 IMMORTALITY THE HOPE OF THE FATHERS, 

cient voucher that the Old Testament in its 
very first stages is stamped with the idea of 
immortality. 

At a later period Elijah was translated, and 
Elisha was a living eye-witness of his mas- 
ters departure heavenward. 

But the Psalms really abound in passages 
that imply the doctrine, and can receive no 
plain and reasonable interpretation but upon 
the hypothesis of the soul's immortality. "I 
will behold thy face in righteousness; I shall 
be satisfied w^hen I wake in thy likeness." 
'' Thou wilt not leave my soul in Sheol." 
'' Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and 
afterward receive me to glory." It plainly 
appears that the Psalmist hoped to live be- 
yond the grave, and to enjoy happiness at the 
right hand of God. 

The same hope is found also in the Prophets. 
"Art thou not from everlasting, Lord, my 
God, mine Holy One? We shall not die." 
" The spirit shall return unto God who gave 
it." Besides these passages, all those w^iich 
speak of a resurrection of the dead and a 
general judgment. It is impossible to read 
these scriptures from the standpoint we now 



IMMORTALITY THE HOPE OF THE FATHERS. 141 

occupy, and not conclude that they teach un- 
equivocally or by fair interpretation the im- 
mortality of man. 

But did the ancients understand them as 
we do ? Did they mean to say in them that 
they had hope beyond the grave ? Did the 
Jewish people all through the centuries be- 
lieve in this doctrine ? The sect of the Sad- 
ducees who denied immortality, existing as a 
protest against the more prevalent opinion of 
the Pharisees who taught it, is proof that the 
general faith of the Jewish nation was firm in 
the existence of the spirit world and a future 
for man. If, as some assert, they had their 
origin only three hundred years before Christ, 
they were entirely unknown during the times 
of the prophets. On one occasion Christ said, 
" Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think 
ye have eternal life, and they are they which 
testify of me." Whence did they get these 
opinions, these thoughts of "eternal life?" 
They did not learn them of Christ, they would 
not receive him. They had these expecta- 
tions of life before Christ came, ctnd they were 
based upon the scriptures — that is, the Old 
Testament. If the Jewish scriptures do not 



142 IMMORTALITY THE HOPE OF THE FATHERS, 

teach the immortality of man, then we have 
the strange anomaly of a whole nation, with 
a slight exception, believing in a doctrine of 
the highest importance to happiness and life, 
about which their religious teachers had been 
silent for two thousand years. 

It is incontrovertible that the ancient Greek 
philosophers had hope of immortality, and 
taught it; that Plato endeavored to demon- 
strate it, and many of their disciples died in 
this faith. Socrates and Plato lived four or 
five hundred years before Christ, and must 
have been contemporary with some of the 
later prophets of the Jews. And this doctrine 
did not originate with Socrates ; he received 
it from men more ancient than himself. " He 
saw this faith reflected in the universal con- 
victions of mankind, and in the ^common 
traditions' of all ages. No one refers more 
frequently than he to the grand old mytho- 
logic stories which express this faith." — Dr. 
Cocker, These men in their best moments 
of faith and reason had tolerably clear con- 
ceptions of immortality, and can we for a mo- 
ment suppose that the Hebrew prophets, 
whose conceptions of God w^ere infinitely su- 



■ 



IM3I0RTALITY THE HOPE OF THE FATHERS, 143 

perior to theirs, were more ignorant of im« 
mortality and life? It cannot be. 

Then the generations from Adam to Christ 
were not left in total darkness. They pre- 
served the ideas of the primitive religion, and 
among the Jews the light of revelation con- 
firmed and established them. That dispensa- 
tion which was " a shadow of good things to 
come" had a light behind it, and at least an 
outline of the coming glory was seen in the 
"shadow" projected up the ages. The dead 
were not borne to the grave without hope. 
Enoch, who walked and talked with God and 
" was not, for God took him," had some reali- 
zation of eternal life before the gates of the 
celestial city swung back to receive him. 
Abraham had some conceptions of the cove- 
nant that took hold on the life to come ; and 
Moses from the top of Pisgah not only viewed 
the land of Canaan, but looked beyond the 
vista of earth and time and saw the " recom- 
pense of the reward" to which he "had re- 
spect" when he espoused the cause' of the 
enslaved Israelites. The great soul of Elijah 
was filled with hope of immortality when ho 
stepped into the chariot for his heavenly jour- 



144 IM3I0RTALITY THE ROPE OF THE FATHERS. 

ney, and as the fiery steeds drove up toward 
the ethereal blue, he dropped the grossness of 
the material body and assumed a spiritual 
garb, the mortal put on immortality and was 
swallowed up of life. 

The doctrine of a future life was, to the 
ancients, a " light shining in a dark place," 
and the pure, the consecrated and believing 
were sustained by it amidst the distractions 
of time, the ravages of death, and the ap- 
parent conquests of the grave. But God re- 
served some better thing for us, some " surer 
word of prophecy to which we do well to take 
heed." A stronger hope, a better dispensation, 
in which death is abolished, and immortality 
and life are brought to light, or made more 
clearly manifest, by the gospel of Jesus Christ. 



CHAPTER VIL 

IMMORTALITY MADE MANIFEST BY CHRIST. 

Glory to God in full anthems of joy ; 

The being he gave us death cannot destroy : 

Sad were the life we may part with to morrow, 

If tears were our birthright, and death were our end ; 

But Jesus hath cheered the dark valley of sorrow, 

And bade us, immortal, to heaven ascend : 

Lift then your voices in triumph on high. 

For Jesus hath risen, and man shall not die. — Ware, 

Our Saviour, Jesus Christ, who hatli abolished death, and hath 
brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. — Paul, 

rriHE spiritual import of the Old Testa- 
-L ment was, in a great degree, veiled from 
the understanding until the fuller develop- 
ment of the plans of God by Christ and his 
apostles. The devout and believing in the 
patriarchal age, and the pious and thoughtful 
under the Mosaic dispensation, had a percep- 
tion of the prophecies and promises that gave 
strength to their faith and hope, and led them 
to look for the coming of the Messiah, for a 

10 (1-45) 



146 IMMORTALITY MADE MANIFEST BY CHRIST, 

heavenly country and "a city that hath 
foundations whose builder and maker is God." 
But the full view of the great underlying 
doctrines of revelation was not granted them. 
Of this salvation that has come to us they in- 
quired and searched diligently. " Searching 
what, or what manner of time the Spirit of 
Christ, which was in them, did signify, when 
it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ 
and the glory that should follow." 

It remained for Christ in the new dispen- 
sation to clear away the mists, and bring out 
into clearer and closer view the great mys- 
teries of the life to come. 

The doctrine of immortality was not new, 
and did not in any sense originate with 
Christ ; but this and many other doctrines 
were touched into brightness by his teachings. 
This doctrine to the ancients was like the tall 
mountain peaks painted against the sky in the 
morning twilight. The outline is perfect, but 
the details that add so much of beauty are 
not discernible by reason of the mists that 
hang about them. But now under the teach- 
ing of Christ the clouds have been dispersed, 
and the mountain stands out in harmony, 



IMMORTALITY MADE MANIFEST BY CHRIST, 147 

strength, and beauty from base to apex. 
Every line of detail is plainly visible, and the 
whole is touched into brightness as by the 
rays of the morning sun. It was a veiled 
statue, where the drapery hung in graceful 
folds, revealing the outline of concealed 
beauty, which was rich in promise for the 
generations to come, and which animated the 
soul to an earnest expectation and longing for 
a full, unclouded vision. Christ lifted his 
hand and removed the veil, revealing the 
statue in all its perfection. In the Old Testa- 
ment is the promise, in the New is the demon- 
stration. In the Old men believe and expect ; 
in the New, we know. The resurrection and, 
by consequence, the immortality of man are 
demonstrated by the resurrection of Christ, 
and by his life beyond the grave. 

If we look at Christ in the character of a 
prophet, he stood between the two dispensa- 
tions : the Old was passing away, the New was 
coming. Christ was the connection between 
the two. They were like the dissolving views 
in the stereopticon, where the outline of the 
picture upon which we have just looked grad- 
ually fades away into that of the new one, 



148 niMORTALITY MADE MANIFEST BY CHRIST. 

which slowly assumes distinctness. Christ 
taught with greater force the doctrines which 
the prophets taught^ assuming them to be 
true; never arguing, but rather with divine 
authority enforcing accepted truth. "The 
doctrine of immortality in a world to come, 
has not in the teachings of Christ the appear- 
ance of a fresh, philosophical theory or a new 
truth, kindling in him a constant surprise and 
intensity. It seems rather like unconscious 
knowledge. He speaks of the great invisible 
world as if it had always lain before him, and 
as familiarly as to us stretches the landscape 
which we have seen since our birth." — 
Beeclier. In searching the teachings of 
Christ, we need not expect positive declara- 
tions or profound arguments in relation to a 
future life. They are not to be found, they 
do not exist. This, no doubt, has been a 
grievous disappointment to many minds who, 
oppressed with doubt and searching for truth, 
have turned with anxious hearts to the New 
Testament, and expected to find the doctrine 
definitely declared, elaborately formulated, 
and supported by profound argument. But 
this was not the method of Jesus. The as- 



IMMORTALITY 3IADE MANIFEST BY CHRIST. 149 

sertion of a future life is scarcely to be met 
with in his teachings ; the assumption of it 
pervades them. The method of Christ was 
to unfold, to develop and demonstrate to the 
minds, and even to the senses of men, a doc- 
trine already hoary with age, and which had 
been the support and hope of many genera- 
tions. The Lord Jesus left the doctrine of 
man's immortality where the Father first 
placed it — at the foundation. It is on that the 
whole superstructure of revelation is reared. 
The constant assumption of it is stronger 
proof of its truth that any assertion or argn 
raent could be. What advantage then have 
we over the ancients, who were in possession 
of Moses and the prophets? Much every 
way. The teachings of Christ have an al- 
most infinite value as a confirmation of the 
Hebrew prophets. He was the substance of 
those shadows which they projected into the 
ages of their future. He met the requirements 
of their predictions so closely, that conviction 
was irresistible to the impartial, unprejudiced 
mind, and that which to them was an unreal- 
ized vision was in him an accomplished fact. 
His knowledge was greater and deeper than 



150 IMMORTALITY 3IADE MANIFEST BY CHRIST, 

theirs. He was the source of their inspira- 
tion. To them these things had been revealed : 
he was the Revealer. They had seen visions : 
he was conversant with eternal realities. 
They had hope of immortality : he had con- 
scious knowledge of pre-existence in past 
eternity. " I came forth from the Father, and 
am come into the world : again, I leave the 
world, and go to the Father." There is 
great significance in the apostle's declaration : 
^^God, who at sundry times and in divers 
manners, spake in time past unto the fathers 
by the prophets, hath in these last days 
spoken unto us by his Son." We readily ac- 
cept the apostle's conclusion or inference: 
" Therefore we ought to give the more earnest 
heed to the things which we have heard, lest 
at any time we should let them slip," 

The popular philosophy in the Greek and 
Roman mind in the days of Christ was against 
the doctrine of immortality ; but the popular 
thought and feeling of that and every age are 
in favor of it, because nature is true to her- 
self. Epicurus had taught that death would 
end all, not only misery but existence^ and to 
think of immortality was a species of folly: 



IMMORTALITY MADE MANIFEST BY CHRIST. \oX 

that the consequences of moral acts could not 
reach the actor beyond the grave. These 
views no doubt were well known to the in- 
telligent Jews, and had some influence on the 
mind of Christ. How strenuously he insisted 
upon future retribution for the actions done in 
the body ! What vivid pictures he gave of 
the judgment day and the final separation of 
the righteous and the wicked ! what a force- 
ful portrayal of the glory of the one and the 
misery of the other ! And in this his teach- 
ings were in accord with the ancestral faith, 
with the convictions of his nation, and with 
the popular feeling of all nations, for in spite 
of the prevailing philosophy men continued 
to fear death and to hope for immortal life. 
Philosophy oftener affects the head than the 
heart, and thought and feeling are not always 
in accord. Often when philosophy seems to 
sway the minds of the learned and widely in- 
fluences the upper ranks in life, the popular 
heart is untouched by it. The intuitions of 
the soul are deeper than the arguments of 
men. 

A recent writer savs, '' When Jesus Christ 
appeared in this world, the Epicurean phi- 



Ib2 IMMORTALITY MADE i' INIFEST BY CHRIST. 

losophy^ the fables of poets of a lower world, 
and the corruption which was prevalent 
among the nations, had fully destroyed the 
hope, to say nothing of a belief, in future ex- 
istence.""^ This we do not receive, the declara- 
tion is too sweeping. It accords too much 
power to a false philosophy, and too little to 
the intuitions of the human soul. It was the 
strong and prevailing belief in the Jewish 
nation that the soul of man is immortal, and 
we find declarations of it in other nations. 
Cicero, who died but a few years before the 
advent of Christ, said: ^'0 glorious day! 
when I shall retire from this low sordid scene, 
to associate with the divine assembly of de- 
parted spirits! Thus to think and thus to 
act, has rendered my old age no inconvenient 
state to me, but even an agreeable one. And 
after all, should this my firm persuasion of 
the soul's immortality prove to be delusion, it 
is at least a pleasing delusion and I will cher- 
ish it to my latest breath." f There is some- 
thing in man too deep for philosophy to reach, 

a want which it cannot fill. 

' "^ "t 

* McClintock and Strong, in loco, 
t Cleaveland's Clas. Lit., p. 391. 



IMMORTALITY MADE 3IANIFEST BY CHRIST. 153 

The ancients based their hopes of immor- 
tality on reason and arguments drawn from 
the nature and capacities of the soul, and the 
analogies in nature. We as Christians hold 
these and many more as corroborative and 
confirmatory, while we base our hope on the 
teachings of divine revelation. Christ taught 
it expressly to his followers by allusion to the 
retributions of God in a future state. He 
taught that great joy and peace would be 
awarded to the righteous. " Then, Peter 
said, Lo, we have left all and followed thee. 
And he said unto them, Verily I say unto 
you, There is no man that hath left house, or 
parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for 
the kingdom of God's sake, who shall not 
receive manifold more in this present time, 
and in the world to come life everlasting." 
On one occasion Christ enjoined the exercise 
of a true philanthropy from motives that 
take hold on eternity. " But wdien thou 
raakest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the 
lame, the blind ; And thou shalt be blessed ; 
for they cannot recompense thee : for thou 
shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of 
the just." In this promise of Christ, the re- 



lU IMMOETALITY MADE MANIFEST BY CHRIST. 



I 



ward is not in this world or life, but in the 
future world, after the resurrection of the 
dead, and for virtuous deeds done in the body. 
" Make to yourselves friends of the mammon 
of unrighteousness ; that, when ye fail, they 
may receive you into everlasting habitations." 
" Rejoice, and be exceeding glad, for great is 
your reward in heaven." In one instance at 
least Christ draws back the veil from the un- 
seen world and 2:ives us a view of the condition 



o' 



and surroundings of both the righteous and the 
wi^:ked in the immortal state. ^^And it came 
to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried 
b\ the ans:els into Abraham's bosom : the rich 
man also died, and was buried; and in hell 
he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and 
seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his 
bosom." There can be neither pleasure nor 
pain where there is no life ; but Lazarus was 
enjoying pleasure, and the rich man was en- 
during torment. Many of the parables teach 
the same truth. The description which Christ 
gives of the future judgment, and the awards 
to the righteous and the wicked, must of ne- 
cessity have immortality for their basis. In 
his interview with the Sadducees, Christ 



IMMORTALITY MADE MANIFEST BY CHRIST. 155 

clearly taught it by refuting those who held 
opposite views, and by positive declaration as 
to the nature and condition of the saints in 
the heavenly world : " They are as the angels 
of God." 

It is not too much to say that we hnow man 
is immortal by the demonstration given of it 
by the resurrection of Christ from the dead, 
and his life beyond the grave. The resurrec- 
tion of the Son of God from the dead is one 
of the be'st established facts connected with 
the Christian system. God's wisdom is mani- 
fest in so overruling all things pertaining to 
it, as to furnish the most incontestible proof 
of the resurrection of the Saviour. Its im- 
portance to the Christian plan was recognized 
by Paul^ and he suspends the whole truth of 
Christianity upon this one fact. "And if 
Christ be not risen, then is our preaching 
vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and 
we are found false w^itnesses of God ; because 
we have testified of God that he raised up 
Christ; whom he raised not up, if so be that 
the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, 
then is not Christ raised; and if Christ be 
not raised, your faith is vain ; ye arc yet in 
your sins." 



156 IMMORTALITY MADE MANIFEST BY CHRIST 

In this is the great value of the testimony 
of Christ over that of the prophets. He ex- 
emplified in his own person the resurrection 
of the dead, and life in the post-resurrection 
world. He abolished death and trampled it 
under his feet. He gave us a specimen of his 
w^orkmanship, as the destroyer of the works 
of the devil, and of what he will do for all 
men at the end of the world. He brought 
life and immortality up out of the darkness 
of the grave, so that all who do not Veil their 
faces may see it. 

Bishop Foster says : " However it may 
awaken surprise, truth demands that w^e 
should make the confession that we do not 
know that death does not end all. Nor does 
any man know that it does. If it we^^e given 
to men on the earth to know, that would be 
the end of uncertainty or even questioning. 
We do not know ; therefore we are liable to 
have misgivings, doubts, and fears. There is 
not a single fact within our reach that fur- 
nishes us absolute knowledge." * The lan- 
guage we have quoted seems too gloomy to be 
uttered after the resurrection of Christ. It 

*" Beyond the Grave," p. 17. 



IMMORTALITY MADE MANIFEST BY CHRIST 157 

belongs to the old dispensation. It is like 
what the prophets might have said when the 
truth shone but dimly through the mist : be- 
fore the divine intimations made to Job, 
David, Isaiah, and Daniel had been made 
clear by the events and teachings of the New 
Testament. But it is our privilege to rise to 
higher things, and enjoy that which is more 
tangible and positive. The doctrine that men 
live after death has been taken from the realm 
of promise and faith to that of well authenti- 
cated history and fact. The resurrection and, 
consequently, the immortality of man are 
demonstrated by the resurrection of Christ, 
and by his life beyond the grave. Is it true, 
then, that man cannot hnoio that there is a 
life afteiP death? Is it true that there is not 
a single fact within our reach that furnishes 
us absolute knowledge of immortality ? What 
is it " to hnoio ? " " To be aware of as true 
or actual; to have mental cognition of; to 
perceive or apprehend clearly ; to be con- 
vinced of the truth of; to have information 
of; to be assured of" To have mental cog- 
nition now, of our own life after death as a 
matter of experience, is of course an impossi- 



Ib^ IMMORTALITY MADE MANIFEST BY CHRIST, 

bility. But in every sense of the words, " to 
know/' we may use them in relation to the 
fact of Christ's resurrection and life. The 
tomb of Christ with the dead body in it, rest- 
ing in gloom and silence, and the stone and 
seal shutting out, apparently forever, the light 
of hope, is a fitting finality to the dispensation 
of law. It was all that it could do. Up to 
that hour the grave had never been opened 
by a true resurrection. Joseph and Nicode- 
mus, when they closed the grave of Jesus on 
Friday evening at sunset, might have said, as 
Bishop Foster now says, " We have neither 
sense nor mental vision of man after he dies. 
He does not again appear within the range of 
our faculties. We do not find him. Where 
he is, or that he is at all, is absolutely un- 
known to us. Our consciousness* is silent on 
the subject. The dead do not come back to 
us, and we are not able to go to them."* 
But that dispensation is past. The seal of 
the Jewish Sanhedrin, dashed to pieces by the 
rising Son of God, is an emblem of the wreck 
of the Jewish polity, and the destruction of 
its ecclesiastical jurisdiction. 

* " Beyond the Grave," p. 17. 



IMMORTALITY 31ADE MANIFEST BY CHRIST 159 

The new dispensation opens by the burst- 
ing of a sealed tomb; by the assertion of 
divine over human and satanic authority; by 
bringing life out of death, and by the restora- 
tion of the shattered hopes of the human race. 
'' Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant 
mercy has begotten us again unto a lively 
hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from 
the dead." We cannot now sav, '' The dead 
do not come back to us." It is true all the 
dead do not come back to us ; this would not 
be desirable or profitable. To multiply in- 
stances would lessen our regard for them and 
the impression they would make upon the 
mind. One instance, well authenticated, is 
enough for the w^orld ; this instance we have 
in Jesus Christ, and we point to him as the 
great fact that unequivocally demonstrates 
the immortality of man. 

What a contrast between the old and new 
dispensations ! Under the first the people 
hoped and believed; under the second we 
know, for Jesus Christ, the representative and 
^^ forerunner" of our race, who was dead is 
alive again, and has appeared ^^ within the 



160 IMMORTALITY MADE MANIFEST BY CHRIST, 

range of human faculties/' Nine different 
times he showed himself to his disciples. In 
every reasonable way he presented himself to 
their senses. ^^ Behold my hands and my 
feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see ; 
for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye 
see me have. And when he had thus spoken 
he showed them his hands and his feet." 
What a contrast between the Saturday even- 
ing and Sunday morning! The striking 
figures in the evening scene are darkness and 
death; those of the morning are light and 
life. The one is the sun setting; the other 
the sun rising. The Roman soldier guards 
the dead body ; the angel of God is the wit- 
ness of the risen Christ. The soldier as he 
looked upon the unbroken seal at the mid- 
night watch might have said : "^^AU's well ; 
the dead still sleeps ! " The angelic sentinel 
at the morning watch might have said : 
" Christ is risen ; all's well ! " This shed new 
light upon all the plan. Every event that 
preceded it was illumined with a new glory. 
Human hope leaped up with all the freshness 
and vigor of a new life ; it rested now upon a 
firmer and broader basis^ even upon accom- 



IMMORTALITY MADE 3IANIFEST BY CHRIST, 161 

plished truth, as well as on promises and 
prophecies. 

However ^Mull and slow of heart to be- 
lieve" and understand the apostles were before 
the resurrection of Christ, they had a clear 
comprehension of his teachings afterward, 
Christ was with them forty days instructing 
them in the things that concerned the king- 
dom of God. And to bring all things to their 
remembrance that Christ had spoken, and to 
preserve them from misapprehension, the Holy 
Ghost was given. It is likely many things 
were said to them not now recorded, upon 
which they could base declarations and which' 
gave them a clearer understanding of the 
teachings of the divine Master. The apostles 
understood the doctrine of immortality as in- 
cluded in the teachings of Christ and as 
demonstrated by his resurrection. St. Paul 
Says : " To them who by patient continuance 
in well doing seek for glory and honor and 
immortality, eternal life." That is, to those 
who persevere in good works, seeking glory, 
honor and immortality, he will give eternal 
life. In this Paul follows the instructions of 

his Master. " My sheep hear my voice, and 
11 



162 IMMORTALITY MADE 3IANIFEST BY CHRIST. 

I know them, and tlie}^ follow me ; and I give 
unto them eternal life." The same thought 
is expressed again and eternal life is repre- 
sented as the fruit of continually walking in 
the holiness secured to us by Christ. " But 
now being made free from sin, and become 
servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holi- 
ness, and the end everlasting life." Also, 
^^ Laying up in store for themselves a good 
foundation against the time to come, that they 
may lay hold on eternal life." And Paul's 
dying testimony is to the same effect : " For I 
am now ready to be offered, and the time of 
my departure is at hand. I have fought a 
good fight, I have finished my course, I have 
kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up 
for me a crown of righteousness, which the 
Lord, the righteous Judge, shall* give me at 
that day : and not to me only, but unto all 
them also that love his appearing." These 
passages do not show any new revelation; 
they are not even a new phase of the same 
truth, but are the legitimate outgrowth of the 
words of Christ, and of Paul's faith in them. 
To the same effect is Peter's testimony: 
" Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord 



IMMORTALITY MADE 3IANIFEST BY CHRIST 163 

Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant 
mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively 
hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from 
the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and 
undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved 
in heaven for you.'* Whatever Peter's hope 
was before the resurrection of Christ, afterward 
it was immeasurably expanded. Though it 
died in Peter's bosom when Christ died on 
the cross, it was begotten again and made 
alive by the resurrection of Christ from the 
dead. The hope that died was probably 
based upon a wrong conception of Christ's 
mission and kingdom, but that begotten by 
the resurrection was more intelligent and real 
and had as its fruition an inheritance pure in 
its character and permanent in its nature, un- 
defiled by sin and uninfluenced by the muta- 
tions of time. . 

St. James also looked forward to a " crown 
of life which the Lord hath promised to them 
that love him." 

The apostle John is very definite, and 
speaks with the utmost minuteness. '' That 
which was from the beginning, which we have 
heard, which we have seen with our eycs^ 



164 nniORTALITY MADE MANIFEST BY CHRIST. 

which WO have looked upon, and our hands 
have handled of the word of life. For the 
life was manifested, and we have seen it, and 
bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal 
life, which was with the Father and was mani- 
fested unto us." This had been shown them 
so clearly, and had been brought within the 
range of their senses in such a way, that they 
could not be mistaken. There could be no 
illusion about it. It was to John the end of 
all controversy, the end of all doubt. He 
knew that Jesus Christ, on whose bosom he 
had rested, whose kiss had been imprinted on 
his cheek, and whose words had fallen upon 
his ear, though crucified by Pilate and buried 
by Joseph of Arimathea, was alive from the 
dead, and had returned to the Father from 
whom he came forth. And John trusted in 
the promise made by the Redeemer to his fol- 
lowers, ''And this is the promise that he hath 
promised us, even eternal life." 

St. John desired to make such an impres- 
sion upon the minds of his readers who be- 
lieved on Christ, as should lift them out of all 
uncertainty and carry them beyond the region 
of doubt and fear. " These things have I 



UIMORTALITY MADE MANIFEST BY CHRIST. 165 

written unto you that believe on the name of 
the Son of God ; that ye may know that ye 
have eternal life^ and that ye may believe on 
the name of the Son of God." 

The word immortality occurs but few times 
in the scriptures, but in the passages above 
quoted eternal life is predicated of the human 
soul as its reward for well doing, and as its 
inheritance in Jesus Christ. It is presented 
by him as the object which all should strive 
to obtain^ as the supreme good and that which 
he died to. secure for those who love and obey 
him. It is placed in contrast with eternal 
death ; everlasting enjoyment in opposition to 
everlasting misery, and, as these cannot be 
predicated of that which does not live forever, 
it shows that all the teachings of the New 
Testament are based upon the immortality 
of the soul. 

In the Old Testament we find patriarchs 
and prophets rejoicing in the hope of an im- 
mortal destiny. In the New Testament Christ 
sheds purer light upon it by his teaching. 
We look into his empty grave and the m3^s- 
tery is solved, not by human thought, but by 
Almighty power. The words and resurrec- 



1G6 IMMORTALITY 3IADE MANIFEST BY CHRIST. 

tion of Christ are the basis of our hope of a 
future resurrection for mankind, and of our 
knowledge of life beyond the grave. The 
resurrection of Christ as an historic fact has 
stood the test of the severest criticism ; the 
fact itself is beyond the province of science, 
and it stands amazed in presence of him who 
-Was dead but is alive again. False philos- 
ophy, both ancient and modern, is set at 
naught. " Mortality is swallowed up of life." 
This glorious life is not of man, neither was 
its discovery made by the researches of man, 
" but according to the power of God, who hath 
saved us, and called us with a holy calling, 
not according to our works, but according to 
his own purpose and grace, which was given 
us in Christ Jesus before the world began ; 
but is now made manifest by the appearance of 
our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished 
death, and hath brought life and immortality 
to light through the gospel." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

FAITH IN IMMORTALITY A SOURCE OF COMFORT. 

'Tis immortality, 'tis that alone, 

Amid life's pains, abasement, emptiness, 

The soul can comfort, elevate, and fill, — Young* 

I give unto them eternal life. — Jesus, 
Comfort one another with these words. — Paul, 

THE doctrine of immortality yields to the 
thoughtful and pure mind the pro- 
foundest satisfaction. Our longings for life 
are intense, and we gladly receive every fact 
confirmatory of our faith. We look within 
and contemplate the soul's nature, and from 
its immateriality, power to think, to reason, 
and love, conclude it is a spiritual substance 
that cannot be dissolved by death. We look 
upon the analogies in the natural world that 
show a gradation in the phases of life in cer- 
tain creatures, and are confirmed in our faith 
that man shall yet emerge from this lower life 
to that which is higher, purer, and better. 



168 FAITH IN IdlMORTALITY 

We search the holy scriptures and find the 
doctrine taught clearly and positively. We 
know it was the support of the Old Testament 
saints, and lies at the foundation of every 
promise and aspiration in the New Testament, 
and is wonderfully demonstrated by the resur- 
rection and post-resurrection life of Jesus 
Christ 

All power, both in heaven and in earth, is 
committed unto the Son of God ; and his 
blessed words, " I will raise him up at the 
last day ; " '^ I give unto them eternal life," 
are significant to us ; w^e rest in them, and they 
give assurance and peace. 

" How do we know our dead shall rise ? 

Under the skies 
Hearts are asking in anguish deep : 

Out of their sleep, 
O, will they wake to an endless life ? 

"Behold ! Where the Lord, the Christ, hath Iain ! 
Travail and pai-n — 
The death — the grave — then, the open door ; 

Question no more ! 
Christ hath risen — Our dead shall rise I " 

The believer in Christ will say: ^^With 
this conviction and assurance I am satisfied. 
The mystery of my being is explained. 



A SOURCE OF COMFORT, 16* 

Earth is not my abiding home. The grave is 
not my final resting-place. My life is not a 
mere bubble cast upon tb^ waves of time to 
float a moment, and then to sink into noth- 
ingness. The aspirations of my soul, as 
boundless as the universe, are not to remain 
forever unrealized. I shall live; I shall 
know ; I shall enjoy, and my soul will for- 
ever expand, and be filled with intelligence 
and joy." 

Much of the pleasure of life is made up of 
anticipation ; an expectancy of future good* 
Imagination helps us, and there is no subject 
upon which we may allow imagination to 
revel with greater safety than this. There is 
no danger of exceeding the reality, and thus 
deceive ourselves. All that faith can grasp, 
all that hope can paint, will be more than 
realized in immortality. 

" Yea, and before we rise 
To that immortal state, 
The thoughts of such amazing bliss 
Should constant joys create." 

What a contrast between the present and 
the future ! what we are and what we shall 
be. " Now I am weak, but I shall be strong 



170 FAITH /A" UniORTALlTY, 

then ; I am poor now, but I shall be rich then; 
I am sinful now, but I shall be holy then ; I 
am disappointed now, but I shall harvest 
fruitions then ; I am weary and heavy-laden 
now, but then I shall lay my head on the 
bosom of God and rest ; I am sick and dying 
now, but I shall be immortal then ; now I am 
despised, but I shall be somebody ; I shall ac- 
complish something ! Eternity is mine, and 
it perfects me ! Let the old rusty clock of 
time tick away the minutes, and strike out 
the passing years. We are listening to the 
morning bells of the eternal years. Come, 
Lord Jesus, and come quickly, and let us find 
our perfection in thee." — L G. BidwelL 

The happiness derived will be in propor- 
tion to the strength and steadfastness of our 
faith in the doctrine. ^^He that cometh to 
God must believe that he is, and that he is a 
rewarder of them that diligently seek him." 
To enjoy communion with God, we must be- 
lieve in his existence and government. To 
enjoy full hope of immortality, we must be 
freed from all conflicting doubts. Happy is 
the man who reposes with confidence upon 
the teachings of the word of God. But there 



A SOURCE OF COMFORT, 171 

should be an intensity to our faith that is 
seldom seen. We hold many of the most 
solemn verities of our holy religion in a sort 
of half consciousness : we believe them, but 
do not realize them. They do not burn 
within us, setting our whole moral and intel- 
lectual nature on fire, sending a life-current 
of energy through every part of our being; 
they do not arouse us to impetuous action, or 
to a persistency of effort born of strong con- 
viction. To reach the highest usefulness or 
zeal in the cause of Christ, we must recognize 
man's immortality ; to reach the highest joy 
in our own souls, we must live on the thresh- 
old of the immortal life. 

Our comfort in hours of deep trial comes 
from the conviction of immortality. This 
conviction is necessary to resignation to the 
divine will. If there be no compensation for 
losses, disappointments, and bereavements, 
there can be no ground for resignation. We 
may bow our heads sullenly to inexorable 
fate, but can find no inspiration of grati- 
tude, hope, or love. We have heard of a 
lady of culture who bowed by the side of her 
dying child, and piteously plead with God for 



172 FAITH IN IMMORTALITY 

its life; but the boon was denied her. She 
rose from her knees in rebellion, and said : 
" I will never pray to God again while I live.'' 
Poor soul ! The anguish of bereavement is 
too great if we forget the redemptive work of 
Christ and immortality. 

This thought takes the bitterest ingredient 
from our cup of sorrow when death robs us 
of our loved ones. They still live, but have 
passed beyond the range of our faculties. 
They are spiritual beings, and enjoy a spirit- 
ual life : only separated from us by the veil 
of flesh. They have been promoted in the 
scale of being beyond our highest conception. 

" W^itli wliat unknown delight the motlier snailed, 
AVhen this frail treasure in her arms she pressed ! 
Her prayer was heard — she clasped a* living child ; 

But how the gift transcends the poor request ! 
A child was all she asked, with many a vow ; 
Mother, behold the child an angel now ! " 

Like the vine, the soul sends out its tendrils 
to grasp that which is higher and stronger 
than itself. When it is firmly entwined about 
the eternal, it is borne above the desolations of 
death. It stands erect when every earthly 
prop is cut from beneath. All earthly losses 



A SOURCE OF COMFORT, 173 

combined cannot affect the immortal. They 
may make the pathway rougher, but they 
hasten the consummation and make it sweeter 
when it comes. " For our light affliction, 
which is but for a moment, worketh for us a 
far more exceeding and eternal weight of 
glory; while we look not at the things which 
are seen, but at the things which are not seen ; 
for the things that are seen are temporal ; but 
the things that are not seen are eternal." 
Earthly things are transient, heavenly things 
are permanent. In our immortal home, the 
former things will have passed away. This 
desolation shall give place to life and beauty ; 
this loneliness to companionship ; the sun of 
our hope may sink, but it shall rise in brighter 
day. The bright forms of loved ones vanish 
for a time from our sight, and the strong tides 
of our affection set back upon our own hearts 
until they well-nigh burst with grief. But 
the river they have passed will soon greet our 
vision ; our feet must press its banks and the 
cold, chilly waves surround us ; then we like 
them shall be clothed with immortality ; the 
pent-up tides of affection shall find a channel, 
and those we loved on earth restored to us in 
heaven, shall receive them. 



174 FAITH IN UUIORTALITY 

Then we shall know that while we mourned 
our loss, 

*' The star that set upon our earthly home 
Had risen in glory, and in purer ski^s 
Was shining ; and the lamp we sorely missed, 
Shed its soft radiance in a better home ; 
Our lamb was pasturing in heavenly meads ; 
Our dove had settled on the trees of life ; 
Another chord was ringhig with delight, 
Another spring of rapture was unsealed 
In Paradise ; our treasure was with God." 

Our treasure still, but transferred to a safer 
home. We shall prove the bond of parent 
and child indissoluble, and draw them closer 
to us in a holier and more lasting affection. 

" Why should we be dissatisfied with that 
kind precaution which housed our pleasant 
plant and removed into shelter a tender flower, 
before the thunder roared, before the light- 
nings flew ; before the tempest poured its rage. 
Oh, remember ! they are not lost, but taken 
from the evil to come." — Hervey. 

I once stood in a graveyard on the banks 
of a beautiful river; the old church where 
our fathers worshipped remained as a monu- 
ment of the past. Trees and flowers made 
the scene one of enchanting beauty, but the 



i 



A SOURCE OF COMFORT, 175 

speaking marble told us we lingered in the 
city of the dead. A Christian man who had 
passed the prime of life beckoned us, and we 
followed as he led the way. Soon we stood 
by the graves of his two sons. One had died 
in infancy, and the other when just emerging 
into manhood. We found no words to express 
our sympathy; no sympathy expressed would 
have been adequate to assuage the good man's 
grief. In silence he arranged a bouquet of 
flowers and evergreens and placed it on the 
graves. His manly form shook with emotion 
and the tears flowed fast. He lifted his eyes 
to heaven and uttered that beautiful saying 
of David, '' But now he i^ dead, wherefore 
should I fast ? Can I bring him back again ? 
I shall go to him, but he shall not return to 
me." 

Immortality becomes the source of an un- 
speakable joy when we reflect that it will 
furnish us an arena for the development of 
our intellectual powers. The thought that 
death is an eternal sleep, that the mind must 
go out like an expiring taper, is distressing, 
and cramps and narrows the mental powers 
and gives us a low estimate of our being. 



176 FAITH IX IMMORTALITY 

The universe is infinite^ but we are confined 
to the narrow limits of one small world, which 
can be traversed, measured, and weighed by 
man. There is an infinity of mystery above, 
beneath, and around us, but we may not at- 
tempt the solution in the short space of three 
score vears and ten. " The stars that hold 
their festival around the midnight throne are 
set above the grasp of our limited faculties, 
and forever mock us with their unapproach- 
able glory." We are imprisoned within nar- 
row boundaries, and the soul that would rise 
and soar is bound down by an earthly clog that 
it would gladly leave and ascend unfettered 
and free. Sometimes we make great progress 
in intellectual attainments, and lay plans for 
the acquisition of knowledge, but -death comes 
and all our cherished wishes are denied us, 
and our hopes are dashed to pieces like a frail 
vessel against the rocks. We have no lan- 
guage to depict adequately the darkness, 
gloom, and disappointment of human life, if 
death ends all. But all these are swept away 
by the glorious truth of immortality. The 
universe we wish to explore is infinite ; so, in 
the direction of the future, is our being. The 



A SOURCE OF COMFORT, 177 

vast mystery we may attempt to solve, for 
there can be no end to our existence. We 
shall have increasing light and power. The 
material body that weighs us down shall be 
exchanged for a "spiritual body" adapted 
to immortality and life. The processes of 
thought and intellectual development com- 
menced here but broken off by death may 
be continued under circumstances more con- 
genial to rapid and permanent progress. 
The youth who has spent all his life in the 
acquisition of knowledge, and on the threshold 
of manhood is cut down by death, while aca- 
demic honors are fresh upon his brow, has not 
wasted time, but may resume in the next world 
what was suspended in this. 
' The mind, by the transition, will in every 
respect be quickened and enlarged; ample 
scope will be given to our reasoning powers. 
Our all will not flow in at once. Progress 
seems at present a condition of happiness ; so, 
we believe, in the eternal world, growth will 
be a condition and element of joy. 

Immortality is essential to all the hopes and 
expectations inspired by true religion. Re- 
ligion must find its consummation in iminor- 

12 



178 FAITH IN IMMORTALITY 

tality, or it can have none. Without it there 
is no heaven, no life; faith is but a shadow 
for which there is no substance, and hope has 
no fruition, " Religion without immortality 
is like an arch resting on one pillar, or a 
bridge ending in an abyss." But with it will 
come the realization of the brightest hopes 
that ever entered the heart of man ; the ac- 
complishment of the grandest conceptions of 
God for the elevation of his creature. It adds 
to man's dignity, connects him with boundless 
possibilities, and gives him a destiny as 
glorious as that of the angels. "As the 
thirsty hart panteth for the water-brooks, so 
panteth my soul after Thee, God. When 
shall I come and appear before God ? " Let 
these desires burn on, these hopes expand ; 
they shall all be realized. That gracious Re- 
deemer, whom we love, whose life of purity 
is the admiration of mankind, whose death 
and atonement are the hope of our race, 
whose teachings shed new lustre upon our 
history, and gave new splendor to our des- 
tiny, whose gospel brought life and immor- 
tality to light, shall welcome us to his 
presence, and lead us forth to new fountains 
of pleasure. 



A SOURCE OF CO 31 FORT. 179 

The comfort derived from the doctrine of 
immortality is all the comfort possessed by a 
large class. Hard toil and privation are their 
lot. Sometimes, where the conduct is virtu- 
ous and the character irreproachable, the ag- 
gregate of suffering is greater than the sum 
of happiness arising from mere physical life 
or social relations. The happiness they enjoy 
that makes life even tolerable arises from the 
hope of another life. They bear with forti- 
tude the ills that come, because the day is 
approaching when God shall make his ways 
equal, and his people shall be fully compen- 
sated for all they suffer in this life by that 
" exceeding great and eternal weight of glory.'' 
If we disconnect this world from the next, 
and take away all those hopes inspired by the 
religion of Christ, what have we left that 
makes life desirable ? " There then remains 
no adequate motive for wishing to live, where 
the aggregate of misery exceeds the sum of 
human happiness." Thus it is shown that 
the hope of immortality is the basis of hap- 
piness and integrity. We shall live again. 
We shall be judged for the deeds done in the 
body. 



IW FAITH IN nmORTALITY 

It is the deep undercurrent of unbelief in 
the future state that impels so many men in 
these days to lay violent hands upon their 
own life. Financial difficulty, social disgrace, 
jealousy, the discovery of crime, adverse 
criticism, political disappointment, are driving 
men daily to commit suicide. In most in- 
stances they are not insane, but have lost 
faith in immortality. Doubts of fundamental 
religious truth have been instilled into the 
mind by science or philosophy, falsely so 
called, or by the gross utterances of blasphe- 
mous infidels. Some have come to believe 
themselves descendants of the brute, as only 
a higher order of brute ; that their intelligence 
or thought is the result of organization, and 
that when the organism is destroyed mind 
will cease to be. Believing this, when the 
hour of trial comes they cannot stand, they 
prefer to suffer the momentary pang, and then 
sink oblivious to all mental or physical pain 
or moral obloquy. 

"For who would bear the whips and scorns of tirae, 
The aggressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, 
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, 
The insolence of oflSce, and the spurns 



> 



A SOURCE OF CO 31 FORT, 181 

That patient merit of the unworthy takes, 
When he himself might his quietus make 
With a bare bodkin." 

There is no time in our earthly life when 
the consoling power and truth of immortality 
come to us with such force and pertinency as 
in the hour of death. How rich and full of 
blessing it is to the soul who has a conscious- 
ness of purity through the blood of Christ ! 
The dark shores of the world behind us, and 
the vast ocean of life before us. In that hour 
we feel the value of the teachings of the di- 
vine word. The soul itself gives evidence of 
her immortal nature. Her aspirations, antic- 
ipations, conscience, religious capacity and 
expansion, speak her birthright to the skies. 
The impulses of the life that reigns within, 
while the' body is passing under the power of 
death, testify of the soul's immortal destiny. 

"'Tis the divinity that stirs within us; 
'Tis heaven itself that points out an hereafter, 
And intimates eternity to man." 

These intimations are confirmed by the 
holy scriptures, and we are saved from haras- 
sing and conflicting doubts. In this we see 
the advantage of the Christian over the 



182 FAITH IN IMMORTALITY 

heathen. We have seen that some ancient 
heathen writers approached very near to the 
true idea of the soul and its immortaUty. The 
light they had must have been the remains of 
the primitive religion handed down by tradi- 
tion, or a partial recovery of lost knowledge 
by the agency of more recent divine communi- 
cations. But in either case it was vague and 
uncertain ; they had no solid rock on which 
to stand, and they were doomed to endure a 
fruitless struggle between hope and fear. We 
have felt pity for the learned and acute Aris- 
totle, whose last words contained so much of 
truth, and such a plaintive cry for compassion : 
^^I entered this world in impurity; I have 
lived in anxiety ; I depart in perturbation of 
mind. Cause of causes, pity me.'' This is a 
great mind standing on the verge of eternity ; 
struggling with mighty thoughts respecting its 
own destiny, and yet unable to grasp them, 
and equally unable to deliver itself from its 
own fears. 

To this man the Hebrew prophets were un- 
known, or if known were not authoritative, 
and the voice of Jesus had not yet broken 
the spell of doubt. The sun of righteousness 



A SOURCE OF COMFORT. 183 

had not jet arisen with healing in his wings 
to dispel the darkness and heal the maladies 
of the human soul. What a contrast between 
this and the testimony of Paul ! A man 
versed in all the learning of his day; whose 
mind could grasp the subtilties of the Greek 
and Roman philosophy; whose Jewish preju- 
dices had been burned away by the fires of a 
divine life ; who accepted with all his soul 
Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the 
Saviour of men. By the light that Jesus 
shed he could see through the mist; the mys- 
tery of his destiny was unravelled, and, stand- 
ing upon the summit from which he surveyed 
both worlds, he said, " I am now ready to be 
offered, and the time of my departure is at 
hand. I have fought a good fight, I have 
finished my course, I have kept the faith : 
henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of 
righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous 
Judge, shall give me at that day ; and not to 
me only, but unto all them also that love his 
appearing." 

This strong faith and hope did not die 
with the Apostolic age. Experiences equally 
grand, a faith equally sublime have been seen 



184 FAITH IN UIMORTALITY 

in every age of the Christian era. We have 
known of nothing more sublime in modern 
times than the death-bed scene of the late 
lamented Bishop Gilbert Haven. Death came 
to him in the midst of his honors and useful- 
ness — in the glory of his manhood ; his eye 
had not dimmed nor his natural strength 
abated. There was in him an exuberance 
of feeling ; a hopefulness that made life desir- 
able; but his faith did not weaver; God did not 
forsake him. He had preached the supports 
of the Gospel to others : they stood the test of 
his dying hour. To one of his friends he said: 
^^I have been preaching these long years^ and 
I w\ant you to say to the brethren now for 
me, I know w^hom I have believed, and I am 
persuaded that He is able to keep that which 
1 have committed unto him against that day." 
Then he shouted with all his strength, ^^ Vic- 
tory ! victory ! victory through the blood of 
the Lamb ! " To another he said, " He is a 
whole Christ; a full Saviour; glory to God for 
such a salvation ! " To another he said, ^^Good- 
night, doctor ; w^hen we meet again it will be 
good-morning." The whole day on which he 
died was filled with exclamations of, ^^ Glory! 



1 



A SOURCE OF COMFORT, 185 

glory ! glory ! ! ! '' An hour before he died he 
fell asleep; then awaking at the close he said, 
" There is no river here ; it is all beautiful." 
And thus the happy spirit passed into the 
heavens. 

The last scenes in the life of Rev. John F. 
Chaplain, D. D., were not less glorious. He 
repeated, " God commendeth his love toward 
us, in that, w^hile we were yet sinners, Christ 
died for the ungodly;" and when admonished 
to speak less earnestly, he replied, " Let the 
world hear it; I must cry aloud." Some time 
before he died his countenance was illumined 
as with a divine beauty. His smiles were 
heavenly. Lifting his hands in astonishment 
at what he saw, he would exclaim in holy 
awe, " Oh, wonderful ! wonderful ! The room 
is full of angels. Don't you see them? The 
angels are all around. They are in my room ; 
they are round my bed. I see Jesus ! I have 
royal escorts. The ineffable appears in sight. 

" * For me ray elder brethren stay, 
And angels beckon me away, 
And Jesus bids me come/ 

Weigh me down or I will leave you," he said, 
lifting himself up as though constrained to 



186 FAITH IN IM3I0RTALITY 

join the holy ones whom he beheld. A few 
hours later the strugglmg spirit left the tene- 
ment of clay ; stepped into the waiting chariot 
and was gone with the angels. Thus the 
grace of God is abundant in the support of 
the mighty champions of the cross, but it is 
equally adapted and not less signally mani- 
fested to the pure but timid disciple. 

Mrs. Mary Hershey Stout, of Columbia, Pa., 
who recently died, witnessed a good confession 
and glorified God in her death. Her unwaver- 
ing faith, glorious hope and complete triumph 
were a fitting close to her life of purity and 
devotion. She said, ^^T am going; He saves 
me ; He saves me ; yes, in the valley He saves 
me ! " Then, lifting her hands in holy ecstasy, 
she exclaimed, " Glory to the Lamb ! Glory 
to the great I am ! ! " As this exclamation 
died upon her lips the spirit took its flight 
and joined the ransomed hosts of the heavenly 
world. 

These are illustrations of the power of God 
to sustain in the dying hour, and they show 
the hope and comfort which the soul may 
have from a firm faith in God and an abiding 
conviction of the soul's immortality. 



A SOURCE OF COMFORT, 187 

"WHEN THIS MORTAL SHALL PUT ON IMMOR- 
TALITY." 

BY MISS SARAH K. MINER. 

See the frail form that sinks beneath disease, 

The stricken soul earth's pleasures cease to please, 

Health has departed ; and that laboring breath, 

Those fluttering pulses rest not but in death. 

Yet feeble nature shrinks instinctively 

From him, our ancient, dreaded enemy. 

But what though terrors darken round his brow, 

Rememberest thou not death is vanquished now ? 

Servile he stands to do the victor's Avill, 

And only dares his mandates to fulfil. 

Fear not to enter then that silent shade : 

There shall thy mortal part in peace be laid, 

Till God shall on that great eventful day 

His saints with immortality array. 

Oh ! who can guess that change supremely grand, 

When the once wasted form thus clothed shall stand. 

Feeling the inextinguishable flame 

Of life and vigorous health through all her frame. 

A holy dignity appears there now, 

And brilliant beauty beams upon that brow ; 

Every awakened sense drinks in delight ; 

Visions of gladness burst upon the sight. 

Whilst purest fragrance fills the calm bright air 

That bathes so soothingly all beings there. 

And every gentle breeze wafts to the ear 

Deep tones of harmony soft, rich and clear. 

Now youth returns with holy jovousness 

The so long torpid bosom to possess. 

Bidding the heart to glow with feelings fraught, 

Bidding the mind awake to active thought. 

For a bold intellect, once so confined, 

Expanding, brightening, for higli deeds designed, 



188 FAITH IN I3I3IORTALITY, 



\ the fair chambers once its own, 
All now to palaces of beauty grown — 
Fitted for treasures earth could never yield 
But to be gathered from all Pleaven's fair field ; 
For knowledge there displays her boundless worth. 
Few are her scattered gems that reach our earth. 
Oh ! with what joyous haste and bounding tread 
Goes that bright being forth to duty led, 
Exulting in her immortality. 
Wandering from realm to realm as far and free 
As though no binding tie were felt or owned ; 
Yet mid that boundless empire, high enthroned, 
Dwells the pure source of being, action's spring. 
The light and joy of every living thing 
That moves mid that well ordered, active scene. 
Our time and distance cannot intervene 
To dim our glance of deep, adoring love, 
Nor check the waves of mighty thought that move 
Toward him, whose power alone can thus supply 
The gracious gift of immortality. 
Gift bought for man by toil and grief and loss, 
By bitter agonies upon the cross. 
Secured through ages of eternity. 
For Jesus won o'er death the victory. 



CHAPTER IX. 

HEAVEN THE HOME OF THE BLESSED DEAD. 

Zion is our heme ; 
Jerusalem, the city of our God. 
O happy home ! O happy children here ! 
O blissful mansions of our Father's house! 
O walks surpassing Eden for delight ! 
Here are the harvests reaped once sown in tears ; 
Here is the rest by ministry enhanced ; 
Here is the banquet of the wine of heaven, 
Kiches of glory incorruptible, 
Crowns, amaranthine crowns of victory. 
The voice of harpers, harping on their harps, 
The anthems of the holy cherubim, 
The crystal river of the Spirit's joy, 
The Bridal palace of the Prince of Peace, 
The Holiest of the Holies — God is here. — Bickersteth, 

An inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not 
■^way, reserved in heaven for you. —-Peter, 

And the nations of them that are saved shall walk in the light 
of it. — John, 

THE state of the pious dead is a subject 
that has occupied the attention of the 
virtuous and thoughtful in every age. Many 
questions arise in the mind concerning them. 
Where are they ? What is their employment ? 

(189) 



190 HEA VEN THE H03IE OF THE BLESSED DEAD. 

Who are their associates ? These questions 
cannot be answered with any degree of satis- 
faction without the aid of divine revelation. 
" One of the most painful pangs in bereave- 
ment by death is the utter and absolute sev- 
erance without a spark of intelligence of the 
departed. One hour, life is blest by their 
presence ; the next, it is entirely and forever 
gone from us, never to be heard of more. One 
word, one utterance — how precious in that 
moment of anguish do we feel that it would 
be ! But we are certain it never will be 
granted us." — Dean Alford. " We question, 
but there is no reply. Out on the wide waste 
seas there drifts no spar. Over the desert of 
death the sphinx gazes forever, but never 
speaks." Whence, then, shall we go for infor- 
mation ? The speculations of men are vain, 
and the dead are beyond the realm of science. 
History furnishes us an account of the beliefs 
of men in regard to the state of the dead, but 
a veil of impenetrable rnystery hangs between 
us and them, w^hich cannot be lifted but by 
him who is from everlasting to everlasting. 

The idea of a place of happiness for the 
^oul after death has been co-extensive with 



HEAVEN THE HOME OF THE BLESSED DEAD, 191 

the idea of immortality. It is found in the 
mind of the rude savage and in the mytholo- 
gies of the cultured nations of antiquity. 
Those unenlightened by divine revelation 
spoke of the dead as having gone to the gods ; 
and their abodes were beautified in their im- 
aginations with every possible adornment and 
filled with every possible pleasure. " Human 
fancy has never combined scenery of loveliness 
and beauty equal to their Elysian fields, Hes- 
perian gardens, and Islands of the Blest." ^ 
One of England's most eminent poets has 
clothed the American Indian's hope in its 
most attractive garb. 

" Lo, the poor Indian I whose untutored mind 
Sees God in clouds, or hears liim in the wind ; 
His soul proud science never taught to stray 
Far as the solar walk, or milky way ; 
Yet simple nature to his hope has given, 
Behind the cloud-topt hilJ, an huhibler heaven ; 
Some safer world in depth of woods embraced, 
Some happier island in the watery waste. 
Where slaves once more their native land behold, 
No fiend's torment, no Christian's thirst for gold ; 
To be, contents his natural desire. 
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire ; 
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky. 
His faithful dog shall bear him company." | 



^ Harbaugh, p. 33. f Pope's Essay, p. 8. 



192 HEAVEN THE H03IE OF THE BLESSED DEAD. 

The Bible corroborates, deepens, and guides 
these instinctive yearnings of the soul, and 
comes to us with the most positive declara- 
tions and rational promises of happiness and 
felicity in the future world. 

As believers in the Bible and followers of 
Christ, we have nothing to do with the heaven 
of the ancients, either Greeks, Romans, or Bar- 
barians, but the longings of all hearts furnish 
presumptive evidence that a home for the 
good and virtuous after death, filled with 
noblest pleasures and employments, entered 
into the plans of our Creator. The sensual 
heaven of the Koran or the successive ascen- 
sions of spiritists do not commend themselves 
to the pure and intelligent mind, and it is 
worse than folly, and revolting to every sensi- 
tive soul, to inquire of muttering mediums as 
to the relations and conditions of the pious 
dead. We must not expect that any human 
hand can withdraw the veil, or any human 
mind pierce it, so as to reveal the invisible 
and spiritual. But we turn with confidence 
to the scriptures, and find that they are con- 
sistent and reasonable, presenting a heaven 
that is pure in its nature, associations, and 



HEA VEN THE HOME OF THE BLESSED DEAD. 193 

employ men ts^ and gloriously aublime in all its 
pursuits. It commends itself to our reason as 
a fitting consummation of our earthly life, all 
that we could desire for the life of eternity. 
Such a place of perfection and beauty fitly 
crowns the divine dispensations towards man, 
and is worthy of a God. 

He who came down from heaven to die for 
men, who has known all the secrets of the 
universe from eternity, has told us in simple 
and beautiful language of the fact of a home 
in heaven for all his faithful followers. " Let 
not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, 
believe also in me. In my Father s house are 
many mansions; if it were not so I would 
have told you. I go to prepare a place for 
you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, 
I will come again, and receive you unto my- 
self, that where I am, there ye may be also." 
This must be entirely satisfactory to all who 
regard Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the 
Saviour of men. The same thought is ex- 
pressed in the remarkable prayer of Jesus, 
" Father, I will that they also, whom thou 
hast given me, be with me where I am ; that 
they may behold my glory, which thou hast 

13 



194 HEAVEN THE HOME OF THE BLESSED DEAD, 

given me; for thou lovedst me before the 
foundation of the world." That the saints 
shall be with Christ after death, no one can 
doubt. The answer of our Lord to the dying 
thief, who prayed, ^^ Lord, remember me when 
thou comest into thy kingdom," shows it. 
^^ Verily I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be 
with me in Paradise." And the words of St. 
Paul, " To depart and to be with Christ." 

It is not surprising that men who think 
profoundly, as well as men of lesser minds, 
should differ widely in their conceptions of 
heaven. We are likely to be controlled in 
our ideas by our condition here, and to hope 
for the opposite of that which has caused us 
the severest pangs on earth. When Robert 
Hall was asked to give his opinion of what 
heaven is, he replied : " Heaven is a place of 
rest." He had suffered much physical pain 
all his lifetime, and this made him long for a 
place and state where bodily ills are unknown. 
Rowland Hill was asked the same question, 
and he replied : " Heaven is a place of peace." 
He had been a great polemic ; impelled by a 
burning zeal for God, he had been a man of 
strife. He longed for a home where brethren 
would dwell together in unity and peace. 



HEA VEN THE HOME OF THE BLESSED DEAD, 195 

Heaven will be a place of rest. Rest from 
all that brings weariness, from sin and tempta- 
tion. " There remaineth therefore a rest to 
the people of God." ^^And I heard a voice 
from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed 
are the dead who die in the Lord from hence- 
forth, Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may 
rest from their labors; and their works do 
follow them." " The former things " will 
have passed away when we enter upon that 
perfect state of blessedness. The laborer 
shall rest, the soldier shall cease to fight, the 
pilgrim shall be at home. 

The ills endured in the earthly life shall be 
more than compensated by opposite good. 
The weak shall become strong, the hungry 
shall be filled, the blind shall see, the deaf 
shall hear, the dumb shall speak, and every 
face and form shall be heavenly and divine. 

It shall be a place of peace. There shall 
be no more conflict, internal or external. 
Every soul shall be in harmony with God 
and with its surroundings. God shall reign 
as an absolute sovereign, and moral and 
physical evil shall not be known in heaven. 
*^And God shall wipe away all tears from 



196 HEAVEN THE HOME OF THE BLESSED DEAD, 

their eyes ; and there shall be no more death, 
neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there 
be any more pain." Thus by contrast with 
earth are the perfections of heaven seen. 

But not only by contrast may w^e see the 
glories of the celestial world, butirom another 
standpoint — this life clearly foreshadows what 
the next life may be. God intended that 
man should make this earth a type of his 
heavenly home — a dim and distant shadow 
of the city that hath foundations. Every 
epoch of time, and every generation of living 
beings, have in some sort been types of things 
that were to follow. So in the earthly life we 
see a shadow of good things to come. Here 
we have social relations, strong and pure; to 
sever them is like drying up the fountains of 
human joy. We have friendships where 
human souls harmoniously blend, and its 
manifestation is like music from the celestial 
world. Here we have a community of inter- 
ests, and often extend the helping hand to add 
to the enjoyment of others. We study and 
experiment, investigate and learn. It is true 
these things are as transient as the bubble on 
the wave. But may we not look through 



HEA VEN THE HOME OF THE BLESSED DEAD. 197 

the transient to the permanent and abiding ? 
These will exist in heaven. There will be an 
infinite extension and expansion of these 
social relations, taking in their sweep the 
pure of all ages and climes, without the pois- 
onous breath of sin or the restrictive hand of 
time. Friendship will deepen and extend 
from age to age, unmarred by loss of gold or 
mists of error, and unbroken by death. The 
soul unclogged by mortality shall pursue her 
thought unmolested, and knowledge shall 
grow without decay. 

I can see all these through what God has 
given us here. Conversion does not change 
the constitution of the soul, neither will 
transfer by death. We can therefore use this 
world as a basis from which to survey the 
next ; and the pure enjoyments of this life as 
a medium through which to view those of the 
world to come. With the absence of all that 
hinders development and mars our joy, and 
with the presence of all that promotes purity, 
growth, and permanency, without the addition 
of one new power, heaven will be heaven 
indeed. I know of no better illustration of this 
thought than a simple expression which fell 



198 HEA VEN THE HOME OE THE BLESSED DEAD. 

from the lips of a godly man. Through per- 
severance and industry he had been able to 
build himself a house. But his chief boast 
was, that from his fireside he could see his 
father's house on the distant hill. '' No 
matter the weather/' said he, " whether 
winter or summer, spring or autumn ; no 
matter the sky, whether cloudless or stormy, 
when I sit by my east window, father's roof 
and chimney-tops, the gleam of his lamp at 
night, are always visible to my sight." * We 
lose much by looking on the dark side of life, 
and thinking that earth contains no emblem 
of heaven. Happy is the man who can pierce 
the clouds of social darkness that surround 
his earthly home, and see his Father's house 
with its many mansions in the distant 
heaven. 

Much of the happiness of heaven will con- 
sist in our seeing and knowing our blessed 
Lord and Saviour. We shall see him, and 
know him in a sense which is impossible to us 
now. Our minds are now feeble, and our 
language very imperfect. '' Now we see 
through a glass darkly." Our vision of 

* "Preacher's Lantern," p. 249. 



HEAVEN THE H03IE OF THE BLESSED DEAD. 199 

Christ now, with such imperfect percep- 
tions, is dimmed and distorted. " But then 
face to face." We shall then see the living 
features, the eye that beams forth in ever- 
lasting love, the lips that move ; and we shall 
hear words that will inspire both angels and 
men. " Nearness to him that made us, union 
with him who redeemed us, the everlasting 
and unvexed company of him who sanctified 
us : what glory, what dignity, what happiness 
can be imagined for man greater than this ? '' 
— Alford. 

Let us now examine the holy scriptures, 
and see what revelations God has made to 
some of our fellow-men. Only a few of our 
race have been favored with a sight of the 
'' evergreen shore." Some glorious revelations 
were made to St. Paul, but he was reticent 
about them. He was " caught up to the third 
heaven," " and heard unspeakable words, 
which it is not lawful for a man to utter." 
The revelation was so exalted, no human lan- 
guage was adequate or worthy to set forth 
what had been heard in the sacred presence 
of God; and, perhaps, no earthly ear could 
intelligently receive the communication. 



200 HEA VEN THE HOME OF THE BLESSED DEAD, 

The Apostle John received a vision of the 
eternal city. Perhaps not as sublime as that 
of St. Paul, but better adapted to human 
comprehension and wants. It was designed 
by God to be instructive to his Church, and 
John was commanded to write what he saw. 
The grand and glowing description which he 
gives of the worship in the celestial w^orld is 
elevating and inspiring in the extreme ; and 
it has special adaptation to us inasmuch as the 
worshippers consist of the redeemed who have 
passed the boundaries of time, and whose 
state we are now contemplating. ^^After this 
I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude which no 
man could number, of all nations, and kin- 
dreds, and people, and tongues, stood before 
the throne and the Lamb, clothed with white 
robes, and palms in their hands; and cried 
w ith a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God 
which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the 
Lamb/' Rev. vii. 9, 10. 

The scene of this vision is laid in the tem- 
ple of the Most High, the palace of angels 
and of God. Of this vast temple our ideas 
must be very imperfect. There is no study more 
suggestive of humility to man than modern 



HEAVEN THE HOME OF THE BLEH^SED DEAD. 201 

astronomy. I do not suppose that inspiration 
revealed to David the wonders of the sky as 
they are known to us^ but his exclamation is 
si.^nificant : " When I consider thy heavens, 
the work of thy fingers, the moon and the 
stars which thou hast ordained; what is man 
that thou art mindful of him, or the son of 
man that thou visitest him?" We must 
always find some material husk in w^hich to 
embody our conceptions of the spiritual and 
divine. So we must form ideas of the unseen 
in the material universe by that which is 
seen ; yet human language is inadequate to 
the expression or representation of heavenly 
things. 

We know of no figures by which to repre- 
sent the temple of God, either its glory or its 
magnitude. The feeblest mind that has no 
numerals for the fingers upon the hand, and 
the mind that solves the profoundest problems 
in science, are alike confounded in the pres- 
ence of the infinite. But when we think of 
the temple of God as forming some part of the 
material universe, we may judge of its glory 
and extent by the portions that are known to 
us. Did our Saviour have in view the worlds 



202 HE A VEN THE HOME OF THE BLESSED DEAD. 

that float in space when he said, " In my 
Father's house are many mansions?" Con- 
template them; there is no limit. The unas- 
sisted eye can take in thousands, and the best 
telescope devised by the genius of man, that 
dissolves the nebula into stars, will reveal 
hundreds of millions. The magnitudes, dis- 
tances, and motions of the heavenly bodies 
are bewildering to the human mind. The 
sun that appears but a small disk upon our 
heavens is thirteen hundred thousand times 
larger than our earth, and the rays of light 
that fall upon our eyes to-night from some of 
the fixed stars, left those orbs thousands of 
years ago. These are all the handywork of 
God. ^' Thou, even thou, art Lord alone; 
thou hast made heaven, the heaven of 
heavens, with all their hosts . . . .and thou 
preservest them all, and the host of heaven 
worshippeth thee." It is a beautiful thought 
to regard, as some have done, this world and 
the vast concave above as the temnle of God ; 
the sun, moon, and stars as lamps hung out 
for light; and the noise of running streams 
and falling cataracts, the ebb and flow of 
ocean tides, as one grand symphony of praise 



HEA VEN THE HOME OF THE BLESSED DEAD. 203 

forever ascending up to God. But this must 
be infinitely short of the glory of the temple 
above. The glories of the celestial dominions 
are beyond the human imagination. The 
vast regions of space seem filled with the 
splendors of the Deity, and crowded with the 
monuments of his power. In this great pro- 
fusidn of worlds we may not be able to locate 
the heaven of the redeemed ; but, where the 
divine Being manifests his glory, where the 
throne of God and the Lamb is, w^ here the 
river of life flows, there is the temple of the 
Most High, the masterpiece of God's great 
work. Every description given, every figure 
used, is of the highest order: intended to 
convey ideas of beauty, permanency, and 
glory. Its streets are paved wdth gold, its 
sea throws back the rays of glory that fall 
upon it as though it were a sea of glass ; the 
walls are built of jewels, and the gates are 
solid pearls. 

John's vision of the heavenly inhabitants 
was given at an opportune time, for w^e con- 
ceive of events of greater or less interest in 
the Cliurch triumphant as in the Church mil- 
itant. Christ had ascended^ his redemptive 



204 HE A VEN THE HOME OF THE BLESSED DEAD, 

work was completed, and a celebration of this 
grand fact was held, and angels and men were 
summoned around the eternal throne. Men 
redeemed out of all " nations, and kindreds, 
and people, and tongues, stood before the 
throne and the Lamb. And all the angels 
stood round about the throne, and about the 
elders and the four beasts (or living beings), 
and fell before the throne on their faces and 
worshipped God." — Rev. vii. 11. 

The relative position of angels and men in 
heaven is not an important question : in the 
order of this vision men stand first. It seems 
right that in the celebration of redemption 
they should first break the silence of heaven. 
Angels were only the students of the theory 
and history of redemption ; but men were 
subjects of it. They had tasted the sweets 
of redeeming love. Then let Michael, and 
Gabriel, and Uriel fold their wings, unstring 
their harps, and close their lips, and let the 
first song of redemption burst forth from the 
lips of immortal men, " Salvation to our God 
which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the 
Lamb." As we look upon the multitude of 
happy spirits in their purity and glory, does 



HEA VEN THE HOME OF THE BLESSED DEAD. 205 

the question arise, " Whence came they ? " 
as though there were a doubt as to their 
ever having had any connection with our 
earth. But the Bible treats of no world but 
heaven, earth, and hell. And the angel 
answers, " These are they who came out of 
great tribulation, and have washed their 
robes and made them white in the blood of 
the Lamb.'V 

We recognize this blood-washed throng as 
our kindred ; they belong to our race , they 
bear the marks of their former earthly condi- 
tion. They were once sinful, or they would 
have had no need of washing. If sinful, they 
were suffering, for these two are inseparable. 
What a flood of light this vision of John 
throws upon the destiny of our race ! Gener- 
ation after generation had passed into the 
shades of the unknown, but here they reap- 
pear above the horizon of eternity. These 
are the loved ones that past generaiions 
mourned as lost. They were not lost, but 
translated to another sphere. They were not, 
for God took them. 

They were once as we are now, inhabitants 
of the earth, mingling with such scenes as are 



206 EEA VEN THE HOME OF THE BLESSED DEAD. 

common to us. They loved and longed, they 
hoped and feared, they wept and sung as we 
do, yet now are they in the vast temple of 
God in heaven, and they serve him day and 
night. They went forth to duty amid the 
heat of the summer's sun and the cold of the 
winters snows. They tossed their aching 
heads upon a sleepless pillow, and watched 
the weary hours go slowly away. They felt 
the pangs of ill-requited love, the bitterness 
of disappointment, and the depression of 
physical weakness and disease. The pictures 
painted by hope were washed away with tears. 

" Once they were mourners here below, 
And poured out cries and tears ; 
They wrestled hard as we do now 
With sins, and doubts, and fears." 

But what a mighty change have they ex- 
perienced ! They are now in the "house not 
made with hands, eternal in the heavens." 
They have left the storms of earth behind 
them, they stand before the throne. They 
are pure, washed in the blood of the Lamb. 
They are triumphant. The white robes w^ith 
which they are clothed are significant of their 
victory; the palms they bear denote the eter- 
nal festival upon which they have entered. 



HE A VEN THE H03IE OF THE BLESSED LEAL 207 

We must not regard this picture of the 
heavenly host as perfected. It has been much 
increased since John saw it. It is increasing 
now. The train of the blessed as they enter 
heaven is an endless festal line; they come 
and come without cessation. " These are 
the ones coming" (Lange) ; it belongs to the 
present and the future, as well as the past. 

Has not the multitude been increased by 
some from our households? Have we not 
some precious children standing before the 
throne, unfolding their beauties and powers 
to the great Eternal, as the rose-bud opens to 
the warmth of the morning sun ? Have we 
not a brother or sister whose sun went down 
before it reached the meridian? Have we 
not a husband or w^fe w,ho fell by the destroyer 
in the prime of life ? Have we not a father 
or mother whose sainted heads were laid to 
rest after a full life spent in the service of the 
Saviour? They are now among the shining 
ones. Ah, ye loved and sainted dead ^ You 
left our unwilling hearts and homes, and 
crossed the eternal abyss. We looked into 
the grave, and you were not there ; we searched 
the universe in vain to gain some clue to your 



208 HEA VEN THE HOME OF THE BLESSED DEAD. 

abiding place, until we took the inspired word 
and looked to the everlasting hills, when, lo ! 
we found you before the eternal throne ! 
Sing on, loved kindred ; tune your harps anew, 
until we join your ranks and swell the chorus 
of your song. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEAVEN. 
[By the late Rev. R. Nelson, D. D.] ^ 

Matt. viii. 11. And I say unto you, That many shall cx)me 
from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham and 
Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 

Luke xiii. 29. And they shall come from the east and from 
the west, and from the north and from the south, and shall sit 
down in the kingdom of God. 

FEW remarks are more trite than that 
man is a social being. Love and fear, 
the necessities and conveniences of existence, 
will drive men together, in larger or smaller 
circles, notwithstanding their wide diversities 
of disposition and culture. Commerce, the 
arts, law, history, and language itself, are only 
manifestations of this universal characteristic. 
Isolation is artificial. It does violence to our 
nature. Removed from human intercourse 



* See Preface. 
14 (209) 



210 THE RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEAVEN, 

man is withdrawn from the atmosphere which 
all must breathe to live. For a hermit to be 
happy or useful is an impossibility. There is 
poetry and sound philosophy in the lines, 

" O yes, Lorenzo, the remark was shrewd, 
How sweet, pure, passing sweet, is solitude"! 
But grant me still a friend in my retreat, 
To whom to whisper, solitude is sweet." 

The questions arise, Is this pervading ele- 
ment of our nature extinguished by death ? 
or does the love of society survive the grave? 
and if so, under what circumstances will it be 
manifested ? 

If I mistake not the import of the Saviour's 
language in our text, it distinctly teaches that 
life in heaven is social ; that saints are not 
isolated but have their enjoyments in com- 
mon. This presupposes, of course, recognition 
in heaven. And why shall we not indulge 
"the pleasing hope, the fond desire" of renew- 
ing in that better world the fellowship of 
kindred hearts broken off here by the stern 
mandate of death ? Why should we not ex- 
pect to meet and commune with those with 
whom we have taken sweet counsel here^ as 



THE RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEA VEIV. 211 

we have walked together through the check- 
ered lanes of life's weary pilgrimage ? Friend- 
ship, pure, warm, disinterested, and founded 
upon religious principles, is not a flower of 
earth, frail as it is beautiful, rising up before 
us like an oasis in the desert to refresh and 
gladden our fainting spirits, and then leave us 
to mourn over its faded loveliness, in all the 
bitterness of disappointed hope. No, it is a 
plant of heavenly origin, and though fre- 
quently made to bend before the blasts and 
storms of this uncongenial clime, yet when 
transplanted into the paradise above, where 
there is purer air, a softer sky, a never-setting 
sun, it shall flourish in immortal youth and 
beauty. Shall this reasonable expectation, 
then, of meeting once more with the loved 
and lost of earth, prove a delusion ? Shall 
this longing desire never be gratified ? Why 
then is it implanted in the breast of the be- 
reaved and suffering ? Would a being of in- 
finite wisdom and love present this heavenly 
cordial to the lips of his afflicted, fainting 
children in this vale of tears and then with 
cruel hand dash it away forever ? This can 
never be the act of him whose nature and 



212 THE RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEA VEN. 

whose name is love. How far our future 
blessedness will depend on the knowledge and 
society of our Christian friends it is impossible 
for us to determine, but it is reasonable to 
suppose that it will be greatly augmented by 
the holy fellowship and converse of those 
kindred spirits in whose presence we delighted 
to dwell, and by whose side we loved to linger 
here. 

But before entering upon our Scripture 
proofs we wish to answer two or three plaus- 
ible objections to this doctrine. 

And first: It is alleged that the love of 
Christ will employ our affections so entirely 
and eternally in heaven that we shall have 
no desire or time for the society of our sainted 
friends, and that the indulgence of such a 
desire would be a disparagement to Christ. 

It is true that to be wnth Christ, to behold 
his glory, and to enjoy his love, is the chief 
attraction of the heavenly world, but the 
Scriptures nowhere countenance the idea that 
we shall do nothing there but stand like 
statues and gaze at him. While the Lamb 
is the bright and glorious centre in whom all 
the rays of heavenly love meet^ He is at the 



THE RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEA VEN. 213 

same time the Sun which warms, animates 
and enlivens all the social circle of the saints 
that surround him. While the saints love 
him in the light and life of that love which 
he sheds around him, they also see each other 
more clearly and love each other more in the 
same blessed light; just as the brightness 
which marks the natural sun itself so prom- 
inent to our view is the means at the same 
time of enabling us to see and know the ob- 
jects around us. His presence there no more 
destroys the social life and love of heaven 
than the sun conceals the objects of earth 
from our view. The greater most assuredly in- 
cludes the less, and how attachments among 
the saints in heaven can prove a disparage- 
ment to Christ or hinder their love to him any 
more than here on earth (and we are exhorted 
to love one another with a pure heart fer- 
vently) is to me wholly unaccountable. As 
well might it be urged that for children to 
love one another ardently will interfere with 
or hinder their loving their parents. 

But again, an objection to this doctrine has 
been founded on Christ's answer to the Sad- 
ducees, when they asked him whose wife she 



214 THE RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEAVEN. 

should be in the resurrection, who had been 
the wife of seven. The answer of the Saviour 
was : " Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, 
nor the power of God. For in the resurrec- 
tion they neither marry nor are given in mar- 
riage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.'* 
Matt. xxii. 29, 30. All that is asserted here 
is that in heaven they do not marry; it is by 
no means said or intimated that they do not 
know each other. The difficulty with which 
the Sadducees sought to embarrass the doc- 
trine of the resurrection, which they denied, 
would have been effectually met at once by 
simply denying the doctrine of heavenly recog- 
nition, and we may suppose that the Saviour 
would have done so were it not true. He 
could have said to them, Your objection 
amounts to nothing, for there is no knowledge 
of acquaintances, and no extension of earthly 
ties beyond the grave. He does not, however, 
resort to this mode of silencing them. He 
does not say that they shall not know each 
other. On the contrary, his answer seems to 
imply recognition. It is as if he had said, 
What though this woman has had succes- 
^iively seven husbands^ and she shall meet 



THE RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN IIEA VEN 215 

and recognize them all in the resurrection. 
The fixct does not at all embarrass the doc- 
trine of the resurrection, for the sexual re- 
lation is not perpetuated in heaven ; they 
neither marry nor are given in marriage, nor 
is there any necessity, for the former things 
will have passed away, they do not die in 
heaven, but are as the angels of God. This 
idea is more clearly favored by the phraseology 
in which Luke records the Saviour's answer: 
" Neither can they die any more, for they are 
equal to the angels.'* 

But again, it has been objected to this doc- 
trine, that if we shall know our friends in 
heaven, we shall miss some that will not be 
there, and this, it has been thought, would 
introduce pain and distress into heaven. 

Now the difficulty we have in fully clearing 
away this objection lies in the fact that our 
instinctive feelings come in to obscure the 
judgment and hinder the force of argument. 
It is not so much our minds as our feelings 
that give us trouble on this point. Let it, 
however, be distinctly understood that no 
objection, however formidable it may seem, 
can of itself, prove this or any other doctrine 



k 



216 THE RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEA VEN. 

of the Bible untrue. God is master of all 
difficulties, and though we may not be able to 
see how they can be removed, God can and 
will remove them. And then, if raising ob- 
jections is a legitimate way of deciding a 
question, we may retort the same objection 
with more force against those who believe 
that we shall not know one another in heaven ; 
for we may say, according to their theory, we 
shall not know whether our parents and our 
children are there, and that will disturb the 
quiet and satisfaction of the mind in heaven. 

But to argue in such a manner is to con- 
found heaven with earth. There are different 
w^ays in which the ground of the objection 
we are considering may reasonably be sup- 
posed to be removed. 

In death all ties which are not sanctified, 
and thus made eternal by the life and power 
of grace, must be dropped and left behind. 
All ties between saints and sinners are of thie 
kind, and must perish in death. The ties be- 
tween husband and wife, parent and child, 
brother and sister, that are of the earth, 
earthy, unsanctified by the power of divine 
grace^ must meet the fate of all earthly things : 



THE RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEA VEN. 217 

they will perish in death. When the pious 
mother dies, her instinctive attachment to her 
ungodly children dies with her, and ties that 
are sanctified between her and her pious chil- 
dren are the only ties toward offspring that 
she carries with her to the eternal world. So 
of all ties between the pious and the wicked. 

All the relations and affinities in which a 
saint of God may have stood to one of " flesh 
and blood/' who bears only " the image of the 
earthy/' will be broken off and left behind in 
death, and consequently can never become a 
source of pain and trouble in heaven. 

This answer to the objection under consid- 
eration we are sure would be conclusive to 
all, were it not for the rising of natural feel- 
ings over reason and faith, while we yet know 
but in part. This weakness of faith, and its 
disposition to flow in the channel of natural 
instinctive feeling, may more or less attend us 
through life ; but we are sure that none of 
these painful yearnings will follow us through 
the swellings of Jordan into the land of holy 
love and pure society. 

And there is another answer to the objec- 
tion — it is this : when iit the bar of God^ in 



218 THE RECOGNITIOy OF FKIENDS IN IIEA VEN. 

the clear light of eternity, we shall come to 
see the exceeding sinfulness of sin, we shall 
feel instinctively to recoil from it and all with 
which it stands connected. Here in this life 
the cords of natural affection become weakened 
between pious and ungodly relatives, by great 
excesses and enormities of crime. 

But let us turn to the sure word of proph- 
ecy. Examining the Bible carefully from be- 
ginning to end, we find nothing whatever that 
conflicts with this belief. But on the other 
hand, all the conceptions of heaven suggested 
by the Bible favor the idea of future recogni- 
tion. The church triumphant is freq-uently 
described under the 'beautiful simile of a 
family^ and it is one that awakens in the 
breast the tenderest feelings and sweetest 
reminiscences. A family separated on earth 
by death, but brought to a glorious reunion in 
heaven. Again, they are represented as citi- 
zens, fellow-citizens, freely intermingling, and, 
we naturally infer, recognizing each other. 
There are several passages in the Old Testa- 
ment scriptures that clearly imply this doc- 
trine of recognition and reunion. Thus it is 
said, "Abraham gave up the ghost and died 



THE RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEA VEN 219 

in a good old age, an old man and full of years, 
and was gathered to his people." Now this 
being gathered to his people cannot refer to 
the interment of his body, for the account of 
his burial is given in the next verse as a dis- 
tinct thing. Besides, his body was not gath- 
ered to his people, for all his relatives were 
buried some hundreds of miles distant from 
the cave of Machpelah, where Abraham's body 
was deposited, some of them in Chaldea, and 
some in Mesopotamia. In like manner Aaron 
is said to have been gathered unto his people 
at his death, although he was buried on Mount 
Hor, in the wilderness, far away from all his 
kindred. Moses, also, whose grave no man 
ever saw, is still said to have been " gathered 
unto his people." The meaning of this phrase, 
" gathered unto his people," manifestly is, that 
their immortal spirits joined the society of 
their redeemed kindred in heaven, and it is 
the same as the New Testament expression, 
^^ carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom," 
or " to join the general assembly and church 
of the first-born," or " to depart and to be with 
Christ." 

Agnin^ the doctrine of recognition is clearly 



220 THE RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEA VEN 

implied by the manner in which David com- 
forts himself on the occasion of the death of 
his infant child. *^ But now he is dead, 
wherefore should I fast? Can I bring him 
back again? I shall go to him, but he shall 
not return to me." 2 Sam. xii. 23. But what 
comfort would all that be to David, whose 
heart was wrung with anguish at the loss of 
his child, if he should not be permitted to 
recognize him in heaven ? But oh, what a 
solace does such an assurance bring ! 

" Look upward, and your child you'U see 
Fixed in his blest abode ; 
Who would not, therefore, cliiidless be, 
To give a child to God?" 

The child is not lost but gone before, and 
shall be restored again to the parent's bosom 
in tenfold greater beauty and promise. The 
relation of parent and child does not cease 
with the death of one, or the other, or both. 
A sw^eet little girl of seven was dying. Just 
before her translation her father said to her : 
" My child, you will not be less mine in 
heaven than you are on earth." "More 
yours, papa ! " was the ready response. Beau- 



THE RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEA VEN. 221 

tiful, and true as beautiful, was that reply — > 
prompted doubtless by divine intuition. 

" O when a mother meets on high 
The child she lost in infancy, 

Has she not then for pains and fears, 
The day of woe, the watchful night. 

For all her sorrows and her tears, 
An over-payment of delight?" 

Jesus says, '^ they are equal to the angels." 
And, also, " Their angels do always behold the 
face of my Father in heaven." 

The beautiful and touching words of Moul- 
trie, in his poem of " The Three Sons," will 
find an echo in the hearts of many who have 
been called to part with a portion of the family 
while come remain ; when the destiny of one 
is fixed, and that of the other hangs in doubt. 

** I have a son, a third, sweet son ; his age I cannot tell, 
For they reckon not by years or months where he is gone to 

dwell. 
To us, for fourteen anxious months, his infant smiles were 

given, 
And then he bade farewell to earth, and went to live in heaven. 
I cannot tell what form is his, what looks he weareth now, 
Nor guess how bright a glory crowns his shining seraph brow. 
The thoughts that fill his sinless soul, the bliss which he doth 

feel, 
Are numbered with the secret things which God will not reveal. 



222 THE RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEAVEN, 

But I know (for God hath told me this) that he is now at rest, 
Where other blessed infants be, on their loving Saviour's breast. 
I know his spirit feels no more this weary load of flesh, 
But his sleep is blessed with endless dreams of joy forever fresh. 
I know the angels fold him close beneath their glittering wings, 
And soothe him with a song that breathes of heaven's divinest 

things. 
I know that we shall meet our babe (his mother dear and I), 
When God for aye shall wipe away all tears from every eye. 
WHiate'er befalls his brethren twain his bliss can never cease ; 
Their lot may here be grief and fear, but his is certain peace. 
It may be that the tempter's wiles their souls from blisa may 

sever, 
But if our own poor faith fail not, he must be ours forever. 
When we think of what our darling is, and what we still must 

be. 
When w^e muse on that world's perfect bliss, and this world's 

misery ; 
When we groan beneath this load of sin, and feel this grief and 

pain; 
Oh! we'd rather lose our other two than have him here 



Turning to the New Testament scriptures 
for testimony in relation to the doctrine in 
question^ we find it plainly implied in the 
language that passed between Abraham and 
Dives : " But Abraham said. Son, remember 
that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good 
things, and likewise Lazarus evil things : but 
now he is comforted and thou art tormented. 
Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, 



THE RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEA VEN, 223 

that thou wouldst send him to my father s 
house : for I have five brethren ; that he may 
testify unto them, lest they also come into 
this place of torment." Luke xvi. 25, 27, 28. 

But again the doctrine of recognition in the 
future world receives additional confirmation 
from what the Saviour has said as to the pro- 
cess of the final judgment. ^^ For I was a 
hungered, and ye gave me meat." ^*' Inas- 
much as ye have done it unto one of the 
least of these my brethren, ye have done it 
unto me." See Matthew xxv. 31-45. Here 
there is beyond doubt a recognition, on the 
part of the righteous, of those to whom their 
offices of kindness and charity had been ex- 
tended; and on the part of the wicked, of 
those from whom they had withheld such 
offices. 

But, again, the heavenly banquet brought te 
view in the words of Christ clearly teaches 
the same truth. "And I say unto you. That 
many shall come from the east and west, and 
shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and 
Jacob in the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 
viii. 11. "And they shall come from the east, 
and from the west, and from the north, and 



224 THE RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEAVEN. 

from the south, and shall sit down in the 
kingdom of God." Luke xiii. 29. It is im- 
plied here as clearly as language can imply it. 

If assured by an authoritative proclama- 
tion that we should meet at a national ban- 
quet, and sit down with Washington, Adams, 
and Jefferson, no one would think for a mo- 
ment that these distinguished personages 
would not be known and recognized there; 
and especially if the proclamation conveyed 
the idea that their presence would give in- 
terest and importance to the occasion. And 
most assuredly the proclamation, in the w^ords 
of Jesus above quoted, speaking of the pres- 
ence of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, gives un- 
speakable interest to the reunion of the many 
as they come from the east, and from the 
west, and from the north, and from the south 
to their heavenly home in our Father's house 
above. 

Again, if on the mount of transfiguration 
the disciples knew Moses and Elias, who had 
already been a thousand years in glory, will 
not all disciples know them, and know one 
another when they stand on Mount Zion? 
When Paul said to his Thessalonian converts, 



THE RECOGJSITION OF FRIENDS IN HEAVEN 225 

^' For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of 
rejoicing ? Are not even ye in the presence 
of our Lord Jesus Clirist at his coming ?" We 
must believe that he confidently expected to 
recognize them amid the throng of the re- 
deemed before the throne. 

Oh, I bless God that the idea of the reunion 
and recognition of Christian friends in heaven 
is so clearly implied and authorized by the 
word of God. For it is an idea that seems 
to be instinctive in the human soul and in- 
separable from its very constitution. The 
desire is so strong, so natural, so innocent, so 
intimately connected with our highest and 
holiest feelings, and binds us so closely with 
invisible and eternal realities, that even, if 
not so clearly implied in the Bible, it could 
not be wrong to indulge it. Good men in 
all ages of the church have entertained it. 
Cyprian, who wrote in the third century, said: 
^^ We believe Paradise to be our fatherland; a 
great host of beloved friends await us there. 
Why should we not haste and fly to greet 
them? There are our parents, brethren, 
children, who are secure in a blessed im- 
mortality, and, only concerned for us^ are 

15 



226 THE RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEA VEJST. 

looking with earnest desire for our ar- 
rival." 

In the fourth century Chrysostom speaks 
thus : '' If we hear and obey what Paul says 
here, we shall certainly see him hereafter ; if 
not as standing near him, yet see him we cer- 
tainly shall, glistening near the throne of the 
King. Where the cherubim sing the glory, 
where the seraphim are flying, there shall we 
see Paul, both as a chief and leader of the 
choir of the saints, and we shall enjoy his 
generous love forever." 

Passing on to the period of the Reformation, 
I cannot forbear quoting the language of the 
great German reformer, who, the evening be- 
fore his death, being asked what he thought 
on this subject, remarked as follows : " How 
did Adam do ? He had never in his life seen 
Eve — he lay and slept — yet when he awoke 
he did not say. Whence came you ? who are 
you ? but he said. This is now bone of my 
bone and flesh of my flesh. How did he know 
that this woman did not spring from the 
ground ? He knew it because he was filled 
with the Holy Spirit, and in possession of the 
true knowledge of God. Into this knowledge 



THE RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEA VEN, 227 

and image we shall again in the future life be 
renewed in Christ; so that we shall know 
father, mother, and one another on sight better 
than did Adam and Eve." 

" I must confess/' says the sainted Baxter, 
'^ as the experience of my own soul, that the 
expectation of loving my friends in heaven 
principally kindles my love to them while on 
earth. If I thought I should never know 
them, and consequently never love them after 
this life is ended, I should number them with 
temporal things and love them as such, but 
I now delightfully converse with my pious 
friends in a firm persuasion that I shall con- 
verse with them forever, and I take comfort 
in those that are dead or absent, believing 
that I shall shortly meet them in heaven, and 
love them with a heavenly love." 

Such have been the sentiments and feelings 
of the vast majority of Christians in every 
portion and period of the world. And how 
precious to the worn and wearied spirit of the 
Christian pilgrim is this hope of reunion in 
the land of the blest ! It rolls away the dark 
clouds of sorrow which gather around the soul, 
and fills it with joy and peace through be^ 



228 THE RECOGNITION OF FEIEJ^DS IN HEA VEN. 

lieving. It enables the afflicted child of God 
to look beyond the Jordan of death to those 
bright mansions in the skies where dwell the 
pure in heart, and triumphantly exclaim : 

"I feel that, however long to me 
The slumber of the grave may be, 
I shall know them again mid the countless throng 
Who shall bear their part in the seraphim's song." 

That it shall be thus is evident from the very 
nature of heaven, which all must admit is a 
state of infinite perfection and bliss. If mem- 
ory shall not be defective, if hnoidedge shall 
not be abridged in heaven, then the dearest 
ties which we form on earth will not, cannot 
be buried in everlasting forgetfulness. 

A lovely and precious child lost her mother 
at an age too early to fix the features of her 
dear parent in her remembrance. The child 
was as frail as beautiful, and her friends saw 
that she must soon pass away. She would 
lie upon the lap of the friend w^ho took a 
mother s care of her, and throwing her wasted 
arm around the neck of that dear friend would 
say: ^^Now tell me all about my dear mother." 
And when the oft-told tale had been repeated 
she would say : " Take me into the parlor 



THE RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEAVEN. 229 

now ; I want to see my mother/' and would lie 
for hours contentedly gazing on her portrait. 
At last the trying hour came; the dew of 
death was already on the flower, as its life- 
sun was going down. All at once a bright- 
ness as if from the upper world burst over 
the child's countenance, the eyelids flashed 
open, the lips parted, and she looked piercingly 
into space. " Mother ! " she cried, with a 
transport in her tone, and passed with a sweet 
smile into her mother's bosom. 

Perhaps there is nothing on earth that 
affords greater joy than the reunion of dear 
friends after a long and painful separation. 
I will not attempt to describe the feelings of 
the fond mother who has been compelled to 
mourn over the absence of her only son, a 
sailor boy, far away upon the tempestuous 
ocean. Wearisome days and nights were, in- 
deed, appointed to her; every gust of wind 
and every flash of lightning that penetrated 
her lonely dwelling convulsed her very soul, 
as she pictured to her excited imagination the 
yawning gulf and the unfathomable abyss 
of the ocean, into which she feared the ob- 
ject of her deep solicitude had sunk to rise 



230 THE RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEAVEN. 

no more. And when, after many j^ears of 
separation, she found her boy alive, what 
tongue can tell the rapture of that moment 
when she heard his well-known voice and 
grasped in her fond embrace the dearest idol 
of her heart! How unspeakably great, then, 
how inconceivably rapturous will be the joy 
of the redeemed and glorified, when they 
shall be permitted to meet and welcome to 
their own bright and blissful abode those 
whom they have loved and left for a while in 
this vale of tears ! 

"A while in flesh disjoined, 

Our friends that went before 
We soon in Paradise shall find, 

And meet to part no more. 
In yon thrice happy seat, 

Waiting for us they are, 
And thou shalt there a husband meet^ 

And I a parent there." 

Blessed be God, the sanctified intimacies of 
earth shall be renewed and perpetuated in the 
everlasting home of the redeemed. There 
unspeakably joyful will be the meeting and 
recognition of those who have taken sweet 
counsel together, devoutly united in prayer 
and sacred song, and have been companions 



THE RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN IIEA VEN. 231 

in tribulation and in the kingdom and patience 
of Jesus Christ. And oh, what heart will then 
be large enough for the rapture of a successful 
minister of Jesus Christ, or a Sunday-school 
teacher, meeting and recognizing many who 
have been won to Christ by their instrument 
tality ! On earth they went forth weeping, 
bearing precious seed, but now they come 
home to the heavenly Zion with rejoicing, 
bringing their sheaves with them. Who can 
fathom the depth of joy in the hearts of 
parents who shall stand before the divine 
Saviour with all their sons and daughters, and 
say: ^'Here am I, Lord, and those whom thou 
hast given me ! " 

But who is the Friend of all others in 
heaven that we most desire to see? Our 
elder brother^ Christ the Lord. He who 
though rich for our sakes became poor, that 
we through his poverty might be made rich. 
He whose love for us can only be measured 
by his profound condescension, descending 
from a throne to a cross, from the highest bliss 
to the deepest agony, from the adoration of 
angels to the scoff of mortals, whose death 
for us was the seal of an infinite love, whose 



232 THE RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEAVEN. 

resurrection was the putting forth of his own 
divine energy, the gracious pledge of our re- 
demption from the power of the grave, and 
whose ascension was the triumphant return 
of an Ahnighty Conqueror to the empire of 
heaven, there to prepare mansions for all his 
followers. " That where I am/' said Jesus, 
" there ye may be also." What a privilege ! 
What glory ! to behold the King in his beauty 
and dwell forever where the smile of the Lord 
is the feast of the soul ; where the noontide 
of glory eternally rolls! ' Jesus called his dis- 
ciples '^friends." " Henceforth I call you not 
servants, but friends." " Ye are my friends 
if ye do whatsoever I command you." In 
heaven Christ will immediately commune 
with us. Here we know but in part ; we see 
only through a glass darkly ; then it will be 
face to face. But if even here, so far from 
the abode of blessedness, God, who com- 
manded the light to shine out of darkness, 
hath shined into our hearts, to give the light 
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the 
face of Jesus Christ, what will be the fulness 
of the effulgence in that city where there is 
no need of the sun nor of the moon to shine 



THE RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEA VEN. 233 

in it, for the glory of God is the light thereof, 
a light whose orb never sinks beneath the 
celestial horizon, but shines on in unfading 
brightness forever and forever. If Peter 
thought it good to linger on the mount of 
transfiguration, how will he and all the saints 
of God feel on Mount Zion above, over which 
no cloud ever settles and from which they 
shall never descend? If the same apostle 
could say, " In whom though now ye see him 
not, yet believing, ye rejoice, with joy un- 
speakable and full of glory," what will be his 
and our joy when we see him as he is, and he 
shall talk with us as a man talketh with his 
friend ? If " unspeakable and full of glory " 
now, whose tongue can tell what it w^ill be 
then, when we shall be permitted to stand 
side by side with the Lord Jesus, to walk with 
him in light and in holy fellowship and to 
lean upon his breast ! 

At a feast given by Cyrus the Persian to 
the chief officers of his army, he gave to some 
of them costly gifts; to one a splendid gar^ 
ment ; to another a golden cup ; but Chrys- 
antes, his favorite friend, he merely drew to 
himself and kissed him. So at the heavenly 



234 THE RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEA VEN, 

reunion banquet, not the white robe, not the 
harp or the crown of gold will be most prized, 
but the privilege of sitting down at the table 
of our Lord and receiving the token of his 
approval, and hearing from his own lips the 
assurance of his love. To that banquet will 
be summoned not only the pious friends whom 
we have known and loved on earth, but 

" The saints of all ages shall in harmony meet, 
Their Saviour, their brethren transported to greet." 

Jesus says, " Many shall come." They shall 
come from all disf)ensations, from all climes, 
all ages, all countries ; from the East, West, 
North and South, and shall sit down in the 
kingdom of heaven — sit down as the warrior 
when the battle is won ; as the laborer when 
the toil is over ; or as the pilgrim when the 
journey is ended. 

How we shall come to know the distin- 
guished worthies in that most glorious of all 
assemblages, whether by intuition or by an- 
gelic presentation, is of but little moment, 
only so that we know them. But know them 
we shall, and their deeds of moral heroism, 
and their fidelity to Christ and his cause shall 



THE RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEA VEN, 235 

also be made known, and that they '' came 
up out of great tribulation and washed their 
robes and made them white in the blood of 
the Lamb." 

A converted Indian once said to a visiting 
missionary as he was about to leave the mis- 
sion: " Turn around, thou man of God, that I 
may see your face once more, so that I shall 
know you in heaven." That poor red man 
little thought how many myriads of acquain- 
tances he should make among the glorified 
in heaven whom he never knew on earth. 

Oh, think for a moment, my brethren, who 
will be the guests at that banquet, each con- 
tributing his portion to its holy and glorious 
social delights ; who shall undertake to esti- 
mate the pleasure and profit of conversing 
freely with him who was the first to enter 
heaven ; with him who, in the midst of ante- 
diluvian giants, walked with God; with him 
who passed out of the ark on Mount Ararat, 
built the first altar in the solitude of a depop- 
ulated world, and gazed on its first bow of 
promise ; with him w^io built an altar on 
Mount Moriah, and with him who was laid 
an offering thereon 5 with him who put off his 



236 THE RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEAVEN. 

shoes before the burning bush^ and for forty 
days and forty nights on Mount Sinai con- 
versed familiarly with God in the thick cloud 
that was on the mount ! Oh, what will be the 
luxury of listening to the Sweet Singer of 
Israel as he strikes his heavenly lyre, and en- 
gaging in conversation with all the holy men 
of old who spake as they were moved by the 
Holy Ghost ; hang on the lips of the first am- 
bassadors of Christ narrating their conflicts, 
their trials and their success, as they went 
everywhere, in the midst of trials and death, 
preaching Jesus and the resurrection ! 

But the distinguished guests in that assem- 
bly are not limited to scripture characters. 
Around that board are gathered the Christian 
fathers, and there also sit the noble band of 
martyrs and confessors, the great reformers, 
whose achievements under God have been 
great for the establishment of Christ's king- 
dom and the elevation of our race. And who 
of us will not esteem that banquet the more 
desirable since there we may sit down with 
such men as Wesley and Whitfield and 
Chalmers, with Asbury, McKendree and Em- 
ory, with George, Fisk, Hedding and Olin, 



THE RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEAVEN, 2Z7 

and an innumerable host of distinguished men 
of God, who in our own day have gone up 
from the church militant to the church 
triumphant. 

To gain a seat at that banquet, God grant 
that we may never esteem any sacrifices too 
great. 

" Oh, what are all our sufferings here, 
If, Lord, thou count us meet 
With that enraptured host to appear, 
And worship at thy feet ! " 

God, bring us together there for Jesus' 
sake. Amen. 



THE END. 






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Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Nov. 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Dnve 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



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